Close Encounters 16
by chezchuckles
Summary: Skyfall: Spy Castle and Beckett return home from the Congo to rest and take up the case against Senator Bracken once more.
1. Chapter 1

**Close Encounters 16: Skyfall**

* * *

The 75th Ranger Regiment (Airborne) filed into the mess tent one after another, a long grey line straight to the chow. They deserved it. Their elite light infantry special operations unit had secured an airfield outside Kandahar after sustaining heavy casualties in a tactical raid that had stretch on for five nights.

Second Lt. John Richard Black - called J.R. by his Army buddies, Richard only to his CO - remembered his supplement pill at the last minute and dug it out of the flap on his breast pocket.

Fuck, nearly missed it again. Sometimes he thought his father's intense supplements were the only reason he survived these Special Forces missions.

He knocked back the horse pill dry and winced as it burned down his throat, but most everything burned. His lungs and windpipe were seared raw from the heat of the fire; they'd lost a 120-mm mortar in a prolonged and coordinated attack by insurgent forces, and the explosion had taken out half his squad.

His hands were steady though. They weren't supposed to be, they hadn't been, but they were.

Because this was a dream. He remembered this night, remembered this work, the Army's Combat Outpost his unit had been assigned to after sustaining heavy casualties in what was later deemed a tactical mistake.

Richard - not yet Castle - snagged a meal tray and a couple of milk cartons, moved quickly to a half-empty table. He'd discovered that the secret to average was to balance the mix. Show up with the guys he led into battle but don't lead their pranks, share a dirty joke and curse at the major, but don't be one heading into town to play with the natives.

So he ate and he laughed at the right places and he elbowed his bunk-mate every time the poor kid's ears burned, but inside Castle was furious.

He'd been pissed then too, in real life and not just the dream of a memory.

Half his fucking squad gone for a piddly airfield. He'd directed sixteen men going into this one but he'd only come back with seven. They'd been repeatedly denied reinforcements, and Richard had been close enough to the commanding officer to hear the man's frustration when he'd called and called and been denied - right before the CO took a bullet.

There'd been four squads, three of them elite light infantry units like his own, for a combined total of sixty-four men and if Richard had to estimate how many were left, he'd be too pissed to eat.

Half the squad. Of course, the guys at this table weren't from his LI unit, so they could joke and tell raunchy stories and slap each other around. His bunk-mate was a fresh-faced from Fort Benning who drove a Bobcat and studied civil engineering and whose quiet and insidious panic should've earned him a body bag.

Richard had probably saved the little fucker's life five times in five days. He didn't mind it, but it wasn't exactly going along with his father's rules.

_Never leave a trace behind._

Just then his own CO came up at his shoulder and gave him a once-over. Richard straightened up and gave his salute, but Captain Eastman shook his head. "With me, soldier."

Richard grabbed his tray and followed Eastman to an empty table, sank down gratefully. His eyes touched on Eastman's for a moment and then away, not wanting to invite questions.

"There's a committee here," his CO started. "Looking to pin a medal on you, Richard."

Castle had forgotten how much Mark had looked out for him in Kuwait six years ago when he'd first joined up. As his CO, Eastman had been given access to some information about Castle's origins that no one else had; he'd been assigned Castle's provisional handler. When Castle had been done with his tour, he and Eastman both had been recalled home by Castle's father, and they entered the CIA.

Richard suddenly wondered if re-upping after 9/11 had been something Eastman had even wanted to do - or if he was here solely as the guardian of Black's son.

Damn it. The ways his father had always _arranged_ things made him furious.

"Did you know about the medal?" Eastman said quietly.

"Captain," he started, grinding his teeth. But he didn't have words to convey his sense of doom. If his father heard about the possibility of an award, Richard was gonna get yanked. Not again. He was actually making a fucking difference here. He didn't want this to be Kuwait all over again.

Or worse - West Point.

West Point still made Richard furious. Even though he hadn't been enrolled under his own name - whatever the fuck his own name even was - didn't matter. He knew the truth. He he'd gotten pulled from West Point five days before graduation and in Castle's mind that didn't make him a graduate.

Some guy named Jack Hunt had been expelled a week before the final ceremony, and if the cadets told stories about his exploits, JR Black never heard them. And Castle - it was so long ago now, that he couldn't even begin to care about what they thought. West Point, Kuwait, even Afghanistan seemed ages ago.

But to Richard missing those five days still rankled. Beckett would laugh at him.

Even within the dream, Beckett was a force inside him.

"I know you have reasons not to get pinned," Captain Eastman said then. "I have reasons not to let you."

Richard lifted his eyes to his CO, his face revealing none of the icy dread trickling through his body. "Yes, sir."

Castle had completely forgotten how Eastman had been on his side even then, helping him behind his father's back, giving him ways to quietly rebel. In Kuwait, the off-book excursions they'd taken together, the phrase _live a little_ a prelude to some amazing adventure. The three years between his tours - under his father's thumb - had occluded that sense of freedom. He'd announced he was re-upping after 9/11 and then he'd done it, not even waiting for his father's permission, and some of that determination was building in him again.

Eastman nodded. "So we're going to play it carefully. You talk to your bunk mate yet?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Don't. If he starts in on the _thanks for saving my ass_ shit, then you look at him like he's grown a second head."

"I got it. I know," he growled back, then blanched and ducked his head. "Sir. Yes, sir."

"All right. Good. Leave it to me to fix this on my end. Second Lt. Black, I will see you bright and early." Captain Eastman left the table with his tray and carried it out of the mess hall. Richard sank down a little and hunched his shoulders, wanting no one and nothing to notice him.

But of course, he wasn't given even a second. A squad of guys descended on the table, one of them giving a nod to the empty seats by way of asking. Richard jerked his head in negatory and they sat, calling out crass comments to each other and talking too loudly.

His squad didn't disrespect like this. Richard didn't like it. His eyes accidentally met the guy's directly opposite him, and the florid-faced man gave him a flared-nostril look in return. Spoiling for a fight. To be a big man.

But Richard wasn't just an Army Ranger.

He had a mission.

_Leave no trace behind_, his father had drilled into him. _Don't be stupid like me._

Right. Stupid having had a direct result in Richard's own existence, he couldn't quite manage to be gung-ho about his father's fucking rules.

Still, he wasn't picking a fight with the asshole across the table. The asshole that looked strangely, vaguely familiar. Like he should know that face, like it was important. The Castle in him was struggling.

Suddenly the unruly crowd of combat soldiers went deathly quiet. Richard shifted in his seat and turned, knowing without knowing exactly what he'd see.

At the front flap of the mess hall, Special Agent John Black strode into view.

"Fuck, that's the doc," a guy next to him whispered. "Don't he look like Death himself?"

Richard stayed still, let nothing cross his face. Doc? He didn't know what cover his father had donned this time, but it was his job to be ready, to listen and wait for his moment.

Black came to the head table and spread his palms out wide. "Soldiers. Men. I'm asking for volunteers."

But this time, it was a dream. And when that call came for volunteers, Second Lt. J.R. Black didn't duck his head and clench his fork and ride it out. He stood up. Castle stood up, felt the indignant, self-righteous anger rising in him as well.

Because it was Coonan sitting across from him, Coonan who would volunteer yet again for his father's independent training and medical testing.

And Castle was done with it; he wasn't going to take it any more.

He stood up, dropped the fork to the table and grabbed the knife instead.

Black deserved the knife.

No one stopped him. No one even shouted out. Castle gripped the knife and came face to face with his father, that smug and grandiose visage, unruined, unspoiled, and he reached out with his free hand to grip the back of his father's neck.

"Are you volunteering, soldier?"

Couldn't even call him son, not here. Not in front of everyone. Castle shook his head and gripped Black's neck tighter, felt the heft of the knife in his other hand. "Not volunteering," he said. "I'm here to fucking slit your throat."

"Really, Richard. Sit down until I call for you. This isn't your time."

Castle brought the knife up in a flash and had his father's throat opened up before Black could finish his sentence. The blood leaked at first, as if it was a flap of loose skin that was letting the vital stuff out.

Not good enough.

Castle yanked back on his father's head and the seam split wider across Black's neck; the blood began to run. Castle felt the knife in his hand but the handle was clean, not even sticky, no warm feeling of life tacky against his fingers.

Not good enough. Black deserved much worse.

He brought the point of the blade just below Black's ear and he dug into the resisting flesh, severing muscle and tendon, grinding past the myelin sheaths and the nerves until he struck bone.

His father opened his mouth to scream, but the blood gurgled in his throat instead.

Castle reversed his grip on the handle of the blade and grit his teeth, put force behind it as he scraped across his father's neck, just under the jaw. The blood burst from the veins and arteries, pumped furiously by a mad-beating heart, spraying Castle's hands and forearms, soaking his shirt.

He smiled grimly and finished the job, as if he were gutting an animal, ending the wide, bleeding smile just below the other ear. Blood drenched the floor of the mess hall, soaked into his leather boots until they squished.

He released the back of his father's neck and Black's head fell backwards, hanging on by mere threads and ligaments, the stubby protrusions of his spine.

Castle grabbed the front of Black's Army medic jacket and wiped off the blade. When it was no longer black with blood, Castle shoved on his father's chest and turned around.

He heard the body hitting the floor, but he didn't turn around to watch.

He was dead. He was brutally dead.

Kate was safe.

* * *

Kate woke instantly with dreams of Africa. This time it had been baby hippos crying for their dead mother, though the night before it had been Castle trapped in the rubble, Beckett unable to shift the debris from him as he bled out, unable to even get to the regimen case just out of reach, all of it for nothing.

But that wasn't reality.

They had the regimen.

Just to reassure herself, Kate rolled over in bed and curled closer to her husband, listened to his heart beating steadily in his chest. He had a stupid grin on his face too, and it made her smile, but she lifted up on her elbow and checked his bedside table.

The bottle of pills was there, one-third empty after a couple weeks of taking them every day. It was part of their morning routine now, and he didn't even grumble at her for it. After she'd brought the serum to Boyd and Threkeld, the two doctors had been thrilled to have the 'complete set' as they'd called it.

Reverse engineering the regimen was number one on their priority list, but Castle was unwilling to continue taking the serum regularly. And since they didn't have enough for a lifetime of even periodic ingestion, she had agreed it wasn't feasible. But to keep his blood cells stable - super stable - they'd agreed on the pills for the next few months to get him back into fighting 'super' shape.

The pills he took weren't weren't the actual stabilizers, but they were an extremely low-dose mixture of serum compounded with elements from that cache of pills in Tunisia. Almost like an inoculation, as Threkeld had explained it to them. This way, Castle's lipoproteins would remain high enough for his body systems, as well as adding just enough _super_ to his diet so that he wouldn't fall into an immune response like before.

She was proud of him; he was being so patient with her on this. She was proud of herself too, for being able to compromise on it, to think it through logically. Castle had never taken the injections every day - only before and after a mission or when he'd been injured in the field - and the paperwork Castle had brought home with them from the Congo seemed to back him up on that.

So the schedule of injections and pills wasn't down to a science yet, but they'd agreed together on this program of recovery. They had even started up maintenance on their covert skills and self-defense techniques as a team. He'd asked her to promise to stay alive, but she only asked the same of him - and they were working together to keep those promises.

Kate leaned in and softly kissed those smiling lips, ran her fingers down his chest to caress his hip. When he still didn't wake, despite that good morning reaction to his dream, she slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

She felt really good for the first time in a long time. Black was still out there, a dark unknown, but even that was something of a relief. If they needed his specialty knowledge of the regimen and what it had done to Castle, then at least it was out there.

No, not just good. She felt _amazing._

Castle still loved her, had forgiven her, and nothing could break them.

* * *

Castle woke from dreams again and groaned, rubbed his hands down his face. The bed was empty next to him, but that had been their routine lately. He slid his legs out from under the sheets and tried to shake off the feeling of blood on his hands, the sound of his father's body hitting the floor.

Obviously, he was messed up in the head. _Obviously._

They were assigned to speak with King at the end of the week, and he knew it was going to be bad when this all came out. But for now, Castle was going to let his dreams work out his deepest, darkest fantasies and hope it would be enough.

His shower was quick and cold. He liked them cold, he realized, when he was on the regimen. A cold shower was like a sign of his physical stamina and endurance - not only did he not really feel it, but it sharpened his mind and woke him for the day.

When he'd dried off and found clothes, Castle padded down the hallway towards the empty bedroom. The panic room he was installing in the closet was hidden behind a back panel and tunneled into the natural space just above the stairs. If he wanted to get truly ingenious, Castle might attempt to make it two-story, digging down into the sheetrock behind the living room wall and the staircase.

He'd have to check the load-bearing beams, all of that, before he took on that detailed of a project. For now, it was a tight, cramped space but it would fit him, Beckett, and the dog easily enough.

Kate had set up his files in here too, all spread out over the work table he'd bought for construction purposes when they'd gotten back from the Congo. He appreciated the effort, her willingness to show interest in his 'hobby', but he didn't expect her to help him. Not with the building of the panic room and not with sorting through the reams of CIA intelligence cables that Castle had found in that manufacturing installation - Congo 3 it seemed to be called.

Despite himself, Castle bypassed the panic room - he needed only to complete the wiring to the security system to finish it out - and he stopped at the heavy, wooden work table. His fingers touched the edge of a mimeographed report dated November of 1969, and he skimmed the contents again, hoping for clarity.

Still nothing. He couldn't make sense of it. Too many code words, too much redacted, too much time had passed: _Phase III completed. Subject neutralized. xxdential approval has been received for execution of Phase IV. xxxxxission for access to Serum 152 and the subsequent antigens..._

And there it stopped making sense. The ink stain on the left didn't help either, and although it was addressed to MJ-1, MJ-2, and MJ-12 and the Project heading was BLK-AIT - Castle was hesitant to make assumptions about these files.

What he knew for sure was BLK-AIT was a project his father had been involved with for decades. And second, that this project's subjects had been given various Serums in controlled conditions - but none had seemed to survive.

The Eyes Only documents were all copies - not a single one was the original - and often so impossible to decipher that all he had were more questions.

"Castle."

He lifted his head and saw her standing in the doorway, hands pushed into the back pockets of her jeans. Her hair was drying naturally, waves around her face, her skin pink like she'd been outside.

"What do you want to do for your birthday?"

He laughed, not expecting that question at all, and he dropped the pages he'd collected, left everything on the table to go to her. "My birthday's not for another month."

"I know," she shrugged. "But last year was..." She wrinkled her nose and he shook his head, slid his arms around her waist.

"Last year we celebrated late," he admitted. "But it was _fun_."

She smirked back at him, their eyes meeting, and he took her hand from her pocket and tugged her out of the room towards the stairs.

"You eat anything?" she murmured.

"No. I'm hungry. You?"

"Yeah. I've been up for a few hours."

"Sit with me?"

"You'll come up with something?" She pushed on his shoulder to get him to head down the stairs, and he moved, feeling her coming right at his back. When they got to the dining room and used it as a shortcut into the kitchen, she crowded into his spine and left a biting kiss between his shoulder blades.

"I'll think of something," he promised. "Forty-five seems like an important birthday."

"Exactly," she said, grinning as she slipped around him. She was headed for the fridge and he watched her pull out ingredients.

"You making me something?"

"Thought I would. Omelette's best I can do."

"Trying to ply me with eggs?"

She laughed, but he leaned in and kissed her cheek. What did he care if she wanted to feed him eggs just in case?

"Sure, baby. Omelette sounds good."

"Sit down and tell me what you want for your birthday."

He shrugged and moved past her, pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sank into it. He watched her for a moment, her fingers slim and strong on the shells of the eggs, cracking them apart. She scrambled them first, got the stovetop burner turned on, and then she washed her hands, giving him a look to get him going.

He sighed. "I don't know. Anything. I liked it last year when we were here at home with everyone."

"We could do that. Reynolds is still - you know - and could probably use a good meal. You are cooking, right?"

He snorted at her and rubbed his hand over his jaw; he'd forgotten to shave. Oh well. "Yeah, I'll do the cooking."

"I mean, I could do it. If you'd rather not-"

"No, I like it."

She flashed him a smile. "I thought so. And since we're quarantined, there won't be any missions to interrupt us."

"It's not quarantine," he laughed.

"They keep saying - _we're just checking to see if you picked up anything_."

"Okay, so it's sort of quarantine. We were in the Congo, Beckett. You can't expect the docs to not be worried about jungle parasites. Remember the blow fly?"

She squirmed, as she always did when he talked about it, and he laughed again and stood up from the table. He came to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling down into her neck with a hum.

"They'll do blood tests every week for four more weeks," he hummed, "and then we're in the clear. We can go as far away as you like."

"I'm not antsy," she muttered.

"You sound restless."

"Maybe a little restless."

"Stir-crazy."

"Not yet," she threatened, slapping his arm as he pinched her. "Not climbing the walls. But I thought they'd let us _do_ more."

"Who is they?"

"Is it _you_? Did you say we couldn't-"

"Of course it's me. I'm the one in charge of the whole department," he said, huffing at her neck. She squirmed again and elbowed him off of her, only to turn around and grip him by the ears.

"You bully."

"We needed the rest."

"But I can at least sit at my damn station and do paperwork," she muttered.

"Careful on the ears," he growled back, nosing in to nip at her mouth, kissing her roughly.

It spilled a laugh out of her, reluctant and coerced no doubt, but she tugged on his ears and brought his head up again.

"I need to work, Castle. It's how I cope."

"I know," he sighed. "But work comes soon enough. I wanted... time for us."

She stilled, her fingers relaxing and her eyes on his. "Okay. For your birthday, Rick, time for us."

He smiled back and leaned in, softly kissed her. "Thank you."


	2. Chapter 2

**Close Encounters 16**

* * *

They ran through the dog park with Sasha on her leash keeping a steady pace; the dog's tongue was out but she was merely trotting at Castle's side. The morning was brisk, cool in the dawn light, and perfect for the sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Even though it was only late February, spring had shaken the trees, pushed green buds out on the limbs so that their way was spotted with tiny reminders of life. He felt good, strong, his lungs expanding easily and his heart rate sedate, and right at his elbow, Kate had no trouble staying in stride.

She'd pulled her hair back into a tucked-in pony tail at her nape so that tendrils curled around her neck and ears. She had worn a long-sleeved shirt in a bright green that matched the trees and the pale sky that cracked open with light. She looked as healthy and bright as the day.

The stress had finally dissolved from both of them. The tension in their relationship sparked as it always did, but it didn't seethe. A couple weeks of getting themselves back into the groove of things at home was all it had taken - time.

Time to forgive. Time to let the rough edges smooth down, to not see a knife at her throat every time she spoke, to grow used to the idea of his having the regimen. Boyd and Threkeld were working on it; Castle had regular appointments at Stone Farm - but so did Kate. Jungle parasites. Anemia. Whatever she needed, she had the medical attention to take care of it.

They were doing it together. Their habits hadn't changed, but at least he thought they were making the effort to be purposeful in their relationship. They'd always taken care of each other, picked up the other's slack, but now it was about doing specific things to build on what they had.

Kate had started a maintenance program with the CIA and forced Castle to join her. An eight mile run every day and a Krav Maga session every other night, with yoga in between. It eased something in him to see her _defending_ herself, and that had been the point of course. His trust in her fight to survive was no longer quite so shaky.

Even with work and training, he still needed the physical outlet for his paranoia - thus building the panic room in the closet of the extra bedroom upstairs. He'd figured that going all the way to the basement might not be feasible, and the extra bedroom was a more convenient location. Being upstairs wasn't ideal for a sustained siege, but it would give them the time. With Black out there and unaccounted for, it soothed Castle to know there was a space just down the hall should their home be breached.

"You're ridiculously happy," Kate said then, her breath steaming in the early morning air.

"I am?"

"This morning when I got up for coffee, you had a really goofy smile on your face," she said. Her voice vibrated with amusement. "You having dreams about me?"

The vision rushed back to him with startling and sharp clarity, the knife and the hot smell of blood. "I..."

She laughed and pushed her pace a little more, sprinting ahead of him so that Sasha strained at the leash to follow. The conversation faltered as he chased after Kate, and when he caught up to her under the trees, she jogged in place for a moment, just watching him.

"It was about the Army," he said finally. "A dream about the Army."

"Good dream," she said, not asking, just telling. She put a foot on the bench and stood on the seat, draped her arms around his neck and tugged him into her. "You have sexy dreams about the Army, sweetheart?"

"I guess so," he murmured. Her mouth was close, tantalizing, and she was curling her fingers in the sweat at his nape, zipping electric current down to his toes.

"Tell me about the Army," she said. Her kiss touched the corner of his mouth lightly. "I don't know anything at all about your time over there. Only that you were in some kind of test group."

"Yeah, the first tour. Sixteen of us volunteers," he offered. He tilted his head at her to shake out the images of putting a knife in his father's throat, as pleasant as they were, and she bumped her hips into his chest, standing tall before him. "But first - this isn't going up on some kind of secret timeline is it? Because I'm not saying a word if you're gonna use it against me."

She froze.

He let a smile slip across his face. "Too soon?"

"You bully." She laughed, though the strain was still there between them, what she'd done to all the stories he'd given so freely, without restraint, the classified secrets in his head that had been tacked up to a closet door so she could run to his father. Her arms relaxed around his neck. "No, no secret timeline. Besides, you took my closet and made it into a panic room and now it's filled with wood dust and plaster."

He grinned, realized maybe that was part of why he was doing it. "Oh, yeah. I did."

"I didn't do it to hurt you. I made copies of the notebook because I would never rip those pages out. I-"

"You copied it and used it to chase after the one man who wants you dead."

"I pieced together your life," she sighed. "I wanted to know. Everything. I still want to know. I didn't want anything else to touch you, to hurt you."

_But you hurt me_.

She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, the other cradling his head, and she pulled him into her, his ear hitting her stomach so that he could hear her breath in her chest. He hung on to her and she stroked her fingers through his hair. "I cherish your stories, the letters you write to me and only me. You took the timeline down and gave me back my necklace, but sometimes I think you're still holding on to them both. Still keeping it back from me."

Maybe he was. Maybe he hadn't figured out how to give things that had been thrown back in his face. He had a hesitation now when he opened his mouth and it was just going to take time to get past it.

But it was time to start.

"I served in Kuwait from '96 to '99, when Black recalled me. After the twin towers, I went back to the Army Rangers until 2003. I had a week's furlough in New York before a permanent assignment in Ireland. You know how Ireland turned out for me. Honestly, I felt pretty good about being with the Rangers even if I was actually working for the CIA's Special Operations Services. It was pretty much the same job, only I assassinated key Taliban leaders before they could be taken prisoner. Or - you know - black ops stuff in the middle of a patrol."

"Wow. Hey, wait. You were in New York in 2003?"

"Yeah," he answered, then realized. "Oh. Where were you?"

She stared at him. "I was here. I was - when exactly was your week furlough?"

"November."

"Shit," she gasped. "We - I was here. Just graduated from the Police Academy. I did the parallel track thing, Criminal Justice in college and the Academy, trying to speed it up, because I was just - wow - I was desperate to open my mother's case. I had been on patrol since March."

"Oh, a baby Officer Beckett," he grinned.

She slapped his shoulder. "My TO was Royce - you know about him - and I'd - shit. I was always having to go pick up my father from some bar. I had handed out my name and number to all the places he went so they'd call me instead of the guys working that beat, and then Dad started finding _new_ places, so that summer I was basically hitting up every bar in Manhattan."

He gripped her hips and titled his head back to look at her, his strong and tall wife. He couldn't help imagining the girl she'd been in 2003, only twenty-three and so fragile, still drowning in her mother's murder and not able to hold it together.

By the time he'd gotten to her - she'd already drowned. Gone. She'd told him that before, but somehow the visceral desperation of that time had never quite hit him.

"If I'd seen you..." he sighed wistfully. When he was thirty-three and still frustrated with the way the world was broken, so soon after the towers had gone down, furious at his father for yanking him out of the Rangers just when he'd thought he was doing some good fighting terrorism...

"Castle, sweetheart, if we'd met each other, it would have been a disaster."

"Yeah, I was... pretty cocky and angry back then," he admitted. "Black had just reassigned me and until then, the Army had really been my only independence. I didn't know then that what I was angry about was the lack of control over my own life. I didn't even know there was a life to control."

Her fingers stroked the hair at his nape and she leaned in to kiss him softly. "Well, I'd have been even worse. My father was an alcoholic and I spent every night scraping him off a stool - or the floor. Depending on how quickly they called me. Angry at your father? I understand that."

"It is... so much different now," he sighed, admitting the truth.

He wanted his father erased. Gone. And Kate's... Jim was the man he looked to for that kind of guidance and acceptance and love. At least they had him.

"What would you have done if we had met?" he said quickly. November of 2003. She'd told him once that she'd had these flings about once a year, a one night stand thing that she could be in control of, no strings; she hadn't wanted connections. "Would you have gone out with me?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "You know I - you give a lot of yourself away to me, Rick. And so the control would've appealed to me. And well, of course, you're fucking hot. And in an Army uniform? Whew."

He laughed, pleased despite himself, and he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the bench. Sasha had picked up some kind of scent and was nosing around the base of a tree, the leash slack in Castle's hand.

"I'd have taken you to dinner first," he promised. "Before we went to your place."

"My place?" she mused. "How presumptuous of you."

"I know what you like."

She laughed again and her teeth flashed in the dawn light, her body drawing closer to his as their sweat cooled them off. "You do. You know what I like."

"It'd have been awful," he admitted then. "I'd have - well, wanted to impress you and been so thoroughly impressed by you that everything would've gone wrong. I'd have tried to take you to this vegan place I always went to back then. Because hot, New York City girls of course had vegan."

"Vegan place?" she muttered, curling up her nose. "For dinner?"

"This Iranian couple owned it - I know, don't ask - but they spoke Persian and at the time I didn't know a word of Persian and it was nice. To just be... nothing. Not a cipher."

"Iranian vegan place," she groaned. "Castle, I'd have refused."

"I wouldn't have let you."

"There is no way in the world I'd have gone along with a vegan dinner knowing that all I wanted was to get you back to my place and probably handcuff you to my headboard."

He grunted and buried his face in her neck, brutally recalling how _good_ being handcuffed by her could be. "You tease."

She laughed and curled her arms around him, up on the toes of her sneakers to kiss his cheek, his jaw, her laughter resonating. "Hey, I have an idea."

"What?"

"Let's do it. Our might have been first date."

"What?" He lifted his head and gave her a crooked smile, confused. "Our first date was-"

"Not the road where you abducted me. Our might have been. If we had met in 2003 in some bar while you nursed your anger and I stormed mine into every establishment my father might possibly drink in. Let's do it."

"A date."

"A 2003 first date. Just you _try _to take me to that vegan place."

He grinned back, imagining it now. "Does it end with me handcuffed to your headboard?"

"Of course."

"Then yes. Yes, I'll go out with you, Officer Beckett."

She laughed now too, so delighted and happy that it made Sasha bark and come back to them, pushing her body between them in an effort to share.

They were going on a date.

* * *

He'd dressed in what he remembered the uniform being back then - the black t-shirts and cargo pants, his black boots that he at least this time left discreetly tucked under his pants. He wore a light jacket in case she'd need it later, a worn-thin army jacket in dull green. It had taken him a long time to break the habit of a uniform as his go-to casual attire.

Beckett was in wide-legged jeans and a short, sleeveless shirt with a deep v-neck. He liked it, liked even better that he could see the slope of her breast as it disappeared into her bra.

"You did that on purpose," he said. She was shrugging into a grey wrap sweater; he slowly pulled her hair out from under the material of the collar.

"I did. Would have then too," she said with saucy smile. "You know me."

One a year, she'd told him once. She'd let her hair down for one a year, and then it was back to the grind, the daily effort of struggling against grief and obsession and darkness.

And him? Yeah, he'd have taken her up on it. He'd been desperate for connection, for something real, and even a weekend in bed with a woman who planned on never seeing him again was more than he'd ever gotten. And it would have made him ache in those dark places, where his mother had left him and his father had neglected him, and he would have enjoyed the ache, fed the ache, wanted to hurt because at least then he was alive.

"I'm so glad we're not them," he said suddenly. His throat was tight with all the ways he might have missed her, had she not held on as long as she had, had he not managed to coast through his father's program until he met her.

Her hands came to his cheeks and her mouth to his in a kiss, fierce and saving. He wrapped his arms around that slim waist, the soft fuzz of her sweater making him warm, and he let himself get a little buried in the way she loved him.

"I'm glad we're not them, too," she murmured. Her mouth glanced at his temple and she pushed him back, made him stand up straight again. "But I'm ready to have some fun. So come on. No more moping. I want you to show me a good time."

He smiled slowly and did his usual trick - or what had once been his usual trick - of sliding his fingers down the inside of a girl's arm and finding her palm, wrapping his hand around hers.

That used to make the assets all follow his lead, taking them by the hand, intimately like that. A promise of things to come.

She laughed and wriggled her fingers back in his, sent him a sly look. "Oh, don't think I don't know all your moves, Agent Castle."

"Only a Ranger now, Officer."

She bit her lip and the grin split in half, no less joyful. "Fine, then. Where are you taking me, Ranger?"

He opened their front door with his free hand and tugged her outside after him, Sasha watching from the foyer with a positively _radiant_ look at being finally left alone. He locked the door and let himself drop into his cover ID as he turned around.

"Where am I taking you? For me to know, and you to find out."

"All right," she said, a note of suspicion and caution in her voice. "But I reserve the right to veto."

"You can always say no, Beckett. But you won't want to."

"I don't know, soldier. I'm pretty adept in saying no."

Oh, he bet she was. Had been. She probably really had been. "Baby, I bet you're pretty adept in a lot of ways."

She broke just a second to laugh, turning her head away, amusement bursting to life. He was glad; he didn't really want to be those people. Not entirely.

"Come on. We've got a long trek to the subway."

She let him lead.

* * *

"You'd have been this paranoid?" she murmured in his ear. They were standing close together on the subway with that 'lean in' kind of posture that new couples always had; she couldn't help herself.

Truthfully, she would be leaning into him anyway, the way his body filled the car like he had command of the whole operation. She saw a number of other women on the subway train eyeing him as well, looks his direction, and she couldn't even feel possessive over him because he was just _like_ that.

They had taken the long way - a _different_ long way - from their apartment, just as they always did. Their run in the dog park this morning had been the dog park in Harlem, closer to his old CIA apartment than their own house, because Castle's brand of paranoia had been given tighter screws ever since they'd come back from the Congo.

This was his coping mechanism. Well, paranoia and truly inappropriate humor. All these bald comments he made, the blunt truth of things, just to get a rise out of her, see if he could make her blush.

"I'd have been worse," he murmured. "Because I didn't know the city as well."

Hmm, interesting. Her spy back when he'd been a soldier, his black t-shirt and the military hair cut. "Was your head shaved?"

"Naw," he drawled, shooting her a charming smile. "It was shorter than this but it wasn't buzzed."

She reached out and combed her fingers at the nape of his neck where he'd cut it shorter when they'd gotten home from the Congo. Said he was hot - hot in February. Of course he was - now at least. Ever since the combination of serum and stabilizers. She liked the feel of the short hairs against the pads of her fingers. Especially since it was still appealingly falling in his eyes over his forehead.

Castle finally ducked his head and shrugged off her touch, eyes narrowed at her for it. She wanted to smile but she wouldn't. She wasn't going to be her 2003 self tonight, no way. She didn't much like the woman she'd been eleven years ago; she liked _now_.

The car screeched at their stop, or the stop Castle had apparently intended to be theirs, because he reached out for her hand and brought it up against his chest, kissing her knuckles, before guiding her out onto the platform.

The crowd was thin, and they picked their way to the escalators easily. Castle couldn't just ride up, of course; he climbed at a brisk pace, advancing steadily towards street level. She didn't mind; she wondered if she'd have minded it eleven years ago.

More importantly, would he have done it? She didn't think he would have, actually. He'd have picked the place, yes, but they wouldn't have been able to weave in and out of pedestrians like this, so effortlessly together, with such ease. She could anticipate his next move and his body was attuned to hers; they were seamless, and they didn't need words for it.

He would have talked to her though. She was pretty sure about that. Not because he would really want to, but because she wouldn't be able to let up. Best defense was a good offense, so she'd have been interrogating him, trying to upset his natural reserve, take his details hostage. They still did it, from time to time, the back and forth that built cover IDs or case theory, created a ruse or diffused a tense situation.

But the difference of eleven years, four of those together, was that she wasn't the woman who needed the defense against him. He had bulldozed right past those defenses, and she'd left them in the dust long ago.

"Castle," she called out. He didn't pause his forward march, but he did give her a swift glance backward. That was all she got, all she needed. "Would you have made it, you think?"

"Made it."

She let the question hang there, let him think about it. His hand around hers tightened and he pulled her up next to him on the sidewalk.

"Sweetheart, I needed you too much to have been able to let go. It would've gotten scary for you."

"Scary for me?" she murmured. But her heart was still fluttering over the idea that she might have been good for him. Had been good for him.

"Stalker type," he said firmly. "Phone calls in the middle of the night to check you were home. Following you on the street without your knowledge. Shadowing your patrols. I'd have been arrested for sure."

She hummed and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "No. You'd never be a stalker," she soothed. "I could never arrest you."

"Love, are you forgetting how you met me?"

Kate laughed, startled with how much she'd let him have back then, how she'd just _let it go_. And why? Because he looked ruggedly handsome in a suit? Because the dark thrill of having her hands cuffed behind her in an interrogation room had suddenly switched into her having his secrets out faster than he knew?

Yes, and more. "Because I needed you too much to let you go," she answered herself.

Eleven years ago? He might have bulldozed right past her defenses then too. But she wasn't sure she could have survived it.

He probably couldn't have survived her either.

* * *

Farbod's.

Beckett laughed and smacked his ass for the cheeky grin he gave her. "We are not eating vegan," she insisted.

"Oh, we are."

"Was this the place you always went? Where they spoke Persian?"

"Farsi," he murmured.

She sighed. "Fine, Farsi. Isn't that the same as Persian?"

"Yes, but I _know_ Persian now. And we call it Farsi."

"But then, back then when you didn't know Farsi... you called it Persian."

"Exactly."

"Sometimes I really hate you," she sighed. "And I am not eating vegan on our might have been first date. I am seriously starving, Castle. This new program we're on - ah, bad word for it..."

But he didn't wince, he didn't have that cloud come over his eyes when she mentioned his father or what had happened. Instead he shrugged and gestured to the hole-in-the-wall little place. "First date awaits, Beckett."

"No," she decided. "I'm taking you somewhere else. Somewhere I know a hot young soldier like yourself has always been dying to go."

"I never was dying to go to those strip clubs. I swear, they always _made_ me."

She laughed and nudged him away from the door, pushing him back towards the center of the city. "There's a place you'd love. Actually, I don't think you and I have ever been."

"Of course we haven't. I've only just met you. I don't often pick up girls from bars, Officer, but I always put out on the first date."

She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling, horrified with how easily he was getting her today - why in the world was she so giggly? She started dragging him down the street towards the Jewish deli she and her mother had always loved.

Would she have taken him there, just as now? Some long-buried instinct to bring him home. "My mom and I always went to this place," she told him. He deserved her stories too, just as many as the ones she'd pored over in his notebook. "I'd meet her there because it was close to school."

"Where is there?" he said softly. He was close at her side now, and he was doing the leaning in, trying to catch her words.

"Ernie's Deli. Hot soup, cabbage rolls, the best sandwiches you've ever had in your life. I'd forgotten about it until just now," she admitted. "It wasn't my favorite place, honestly. I wanted fries or I wanted some chic salad like all my friends."

"So you kind of buried the memory," he murmured. His eyes were so kind. She'd never noticed quite like this before. Such a gentle man. She'd often wondered what would have happened to him if his mother had kept him away from Black, but now she wondered what would have happened if they'd had the last eleven years.

"I did. I guess because my mom was gone and those weren't particularly stand-out memories - they were just normal."

"Have you been back since she died?"

She was startled to realize that _since she died_ had replaced _since she was murdered_. And had been replaced for a year or so now. "Yes," she answered finally. "Dad and I. And I took Ryan one day when he needed a pep talk."

"Oh, so this is a - this place holds meaning," he said. "Kate. You wouldn't have allowed me to get near this place. No way."

"I think.. I would have," she said, probing the theory in her head for cracks in the foundation. "I think, yes, I would have. I'd have seen the vegan place and - how would you have explained that? You'd have told me that you only eat from that strict diet, and I'd have seen that look on your face I saw when you told me you never ate syrup with your waffles or you had never gotten Chinese takeout."

"What look?"

"Like an orphan," she huffed. "The boy left behind." She swallowed hard at the way it hit her now, the clutch of her throat as if she might cry. Over the past. Over things she'd _fixed_ already. "One look from you like that, Rick, and I'd have wanted to bring you home."

"Are you telling me my considerable charm and massive wit weren't the things that won you over?"

"Oh, your _considerable_ something won me, that's for sure."

He grinned and that wave of sorrow was washed right out again. Castle might have been an abandoned little boy, but he wasn't now. She had him. She'd always have him.

"So come on. I'm taking you home."

"To a Jewish deli," he deadpanned. "All right. Bring it on."


	3. Chapter 3

**Close Encounters 16: Skyfall**

* * *

She was having fun on their might-have-been first date. And she felt good even when their conversation veered away from 2003 flirting and touched on their time in the jungle or his father's disappearance off the grid; she still felt good.

And yeah, they'd had more than a few conversations with Dr King about panic attacks and his paranoia over the years, but this tonight, this was just them. They'd built this with every session over the last four years, the ability to forgive and see each other's perspective, and now it was bearing fruit inside of Ernie's deli.

"Look at us having a normal conversation, normal dinner," he laughed, his mind apparently on the same track as hers.

"We are _good_ at this," she grinned back. She'd gotten the cabbage rolls and potato cakes, and she'd already devoured all three of the potato cakes before Castle had managed his first bite. "Hey, will you go get me another order of these?"

"Yeah. Just three? Maybe I should get you a double order, Beckett. You're going to steal mine; I can feel it."

She eyed the three still left on his plate. "Maybe you should."

He laughed and pushed his chair back; they'd chosen a table in the corner, Castle skittish of the clear-glass front windows, and now it was a production getting around the other patrons. He was probably hamming it up for her too, and she reached out to let her fingers skim his ass as he passed her.

"Oh, promises, promises," he murmured, winking as he moved for the deli counter.

She put her fork in his potato cake and dragged it over onto her own plate. The program she'd started when they'd gotten back from the Congo was intense. The Krav Maga sessions alone were grueling, but added to that were the running schedule, the deep-cover exercises, and the four hours of international diplomacy training. She was determined to get her proficiency though, because she knew it put his mind at ease. She thought it was only fair - if she was going to keep throwing herself into danger to save him, she'd better be equipped.

She was also certifying to carry, officially, as a CIA Special Operations Officer like Castle. She'd gone out as an analyst and an agent, but never an officer, and it meant she would have access to heavy duty weapons as well as whatever piece she'd carry on her own. Those target practices were nothing like the 'aim and shoot' lessons at the police academy. These were intensive, rolling around, wrestling hand-to-hand, all-out battles for supremacy.

But being an SO Officer provided her _less_ legal protection should she be discovered on foreign soil (unlike claiming diplomatic status). She and Castle had been talking about it at length lately, but as she'd already pointed out - she only went on missions with him. They were partners, and if she was captured overseas, he would be too.

And better that they both have the weapons to fight back.

She was ravenous. And these potato cakes were so good. Ever since the Congo, everything tasted better. Everything was sharper and more vibrant, and she knew it was partly that heady feeling of getting away with something that should have killed her - Black _should_ have killed her - but it was also having her husband still here.

He was stronger than she'd given him credit for, and he'd come when she'd needed him. More than that, he had made a way, made it possible to attain the last of the regimen and so - yeah - yeah, she felt good.

New lease on life, right?

"I see you have decimated my potato cakes."

She grinned up at him as he came back with a white paper sack, grease already staining the bottom. "You got me more?"

"I did."

"How many are in that sack?"

"Fifteen."

She gasped and laughed, held her hands out eagerly for the bag. "Because you really do love me."

"I must," he sighed. "But at least three of those are for me."

"Three?"

"Three," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"Fine, I suppose. Whatever." She opened the bag and used the crinkly paper inside to pull out three. He took them from her quickly as they burned the tips of her fingers.

"Watch out. Hot," he said, dropping the potato cakes to his plate and sucking on his fingers. She bit her lip to keep from reaching out and doing it herself, the oil of the cakes and the width of his finger on her tongue...

Yikes. Time to go home. Right now. "Hey, let's hurry this up."

He lifted an eyebrow. His meal was only half finished, though she'd eaten one cabbage roll and made a considerable dent in her second. "Beckett."

"Yeah, you can't tease me like that and then take your time over your meal. Come on. I was too tired to move last night but tonight I want some action."

"You got action last night too," he reminded her, pointing his fork in her direction. "I did all the work."

"Yes, I know. But now _I_ want to do the work."

He grinned, that wolf-like smile that made his eyes slit so narrow and his mouth pull back - the good one. The one that meant she was in for it. "I could go for that. You did promise handcuffed to the headboard."

"And I meant it. Narrow window of opportunity here, soldier. Finish your food - _fast_."

He scoffed at her. "Narrow window? No way, sweetheart. Your window is wide open for me."

* * *

Now that they were allowed back at the Office, they'd taken to finding curious routes to work every morning. Castle made a game of trying to get them lost and testing her knowledge of the city and her innate sense of direction. On Wednesday, they came upon a wild garden nestled behind an alleyway with a private gate sent into a crumbling brick wall.

They were running late, but she had to stop, just inside the wrought-iron, and take deep breaths of the early-blooming white jasmine. The brick at her back was chilly with early morning dew, but Castle came up behind her and his palm warmed her spine. The bricked-in garden had been forgotten, but nature had asserted herself, claiming every inch and even pushing out the loose bricks.

Castle's soft kiss was another note of wonder in the midst of the walls.

"Does it go all the way through?" he asked. His breath was warm along her cheek and he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear almost absently, his eyes scanning the garden too.

The orange tree in the center of the space shifted its silver-limned leaves in the early morning light, the rustle of possibility in its tight buds. It made her throat hurt with that sharp tang of citrus.

"We should remember this place. Come back when there are oranges." She could almost taste them, sour and running with juice, that tart spice that wild things had.

"Bring Sasha. She has a kinship with the wild," Castle added.

It made her happy, knowing he saw it the same way she did - a tiny corner of the earth that the world hadn't been able to invade. It made a difference.

Not everything was lost. Even in the ruins...

Castle took her hand and she let him tug her lightly along the brick path, old and well-worn, brown with mud, a relic from another century. The garden had grown wild, weeds sprouting up fast and hardy between what had been regular flower beds, limbs hanging low and overburdened with new leaves. The wildflowers had already bloomed, dots of yellow and white with their black faces to the sun. A few daffodils too, meandering under the trees in a ragged line.

The path went through to a narrow gate that ran behind a laundromat, waves of warm, wet air falling over them from the industrial dryers. "No wonder," Castle said. "It's a greenhouse back here."

The alley opened up onto a side street; Kate instinctively turned left and brought them back out onto a wide avenue they knew. From there it was only blocks to a subway station where Castle bought one-time cards with cash.

They rode in silence, standing up and their bodies swaying with the motion of the car, but the memory of warm air and flowers growing up out of brick walls stayed with her.

* * *

It wasn't that work couldn't touch them any longer.

It did; it was. Hours were long - as they always had been - and dinner was often a grim reminder at nine o'clock as their stomachs growled on the walk home. The focus on Bracken had narrowed to a point where it seemed irresponsible to stop. They called Jim to take Sasha for a few days when the evidence came in and filled two rooms with boxes; they stayed up at the Office for forty-eight hours straight.

Sorting through it all became Beckett and Malone's jobs. They inventoried every print-out and every hand-written note, went back through testimony and cross-checked it with Secret Service surveillance. Malone wrote a computer program to index and run analysis, and they were constantly getting hits and having to research the data.

Bracken's money trail was a circuitous line, but it connected the sex trafficking to the Senator's own office, and with the testimony of his former Chief of Staff, they had some damning evidence.

She wasn't sure it was enough; she was afraid it would never be enough. But it was a start. The AG's office had five of its best prosecutors on the case and they were constantly calling her to check some detail or log an item. She'd normally be worried about evidence disappearing or being tampered with but the security in place was serious. Malone would walk with her from the evidence room and they'd sign out together for lunch or breaks. At the end of the day, two MPs hovered behind them as they locked up every sealed container and then locked the doors as well.

On Friday after a session with King, Castle drove them up to Stone Farm. As they had every week since their return, they each had a regular physical with Boyd. That Friday Kate went first while Castle made them a light dinner in the kitchen. When it was his turn, she took over at the stove and finished his scrambled eggs, put them in the oven to keep warm while he was gone.

She moved to flip the pancake in the skillet, and she realized it wasn't a pancake at all. He was making potato cakes for her, beautiful man. Kate grinned and picked up the spatula, turned the potato cake to keep it from burning. No wonder he hadn't even been done when she was finished with her check-up.

The band-aid in the crook of her arm was starting to pinch, so she ripped it free, removed the cotton ball below to look at it. Boyd had drawn blood, always worried about her anemia, but he didn't have the best sticking moves. She could already see the bruise forming at the skin.

She threw away the band-aid and washed her hands, the smell of butter and cheese and potatoes thick in the air. She opened up the freezer and hunted through the various items left behind until she found frozen fruit. Not ideal, but better than just greasy potato cakes. Castle, ever mindful of lipoproteins, would probably eat every last bite of those eggs.

Kate had everything ready by the time Castle came down the hall. Logan was at his heel, and he whistled when he stopped in the doorway.

"How did I let you slip through my fingers?" Logan said, happily sitting down at the table and taking a plate. "Gorgeous and you can cook too."

"Castle got it started," she said. "And yes, we made enough for everyone."

Logan grinned and kept right on dishing out food. But Castle came to her instead, slid his hand around her waist and pulled their bodies together. His kiss was light, a smile interrupting it when it had just gotten good, and he had eyes only for her.

"Thanks," he murmured, another little kiss below her jaw. "Good check up?"

"Easy. You?"

"As pie, love. Oh, pie. Do you know how to make pie? I've never tried."

"I know how," she laughed, pushing him to sit at the table with Logan. "Technically. But I'm not sure it would turn out. What kind?"

"Apple," Logan butted in. "Or pecan. My favorites."

"Hey now, this is my pie. Pie for my birthday," Castle said, pushing on Logan's shoulder. He pushed a little too hard, apparently not knowing his own strength or tapping into some latent and unlooked for emotion, and Logan nearly hit the floor. Their friend was laughing, like it was all in good fun, but Kate shot Castle a quick look and their eyes met.

The raw parts of him were showing.

She came to his side and briefly palmed the back of his head, pulling him in against her for a hug. He gripped the back of her thigh with a possessive and fierce clutch, and then he let her go.

They were trying, but Castle was still frustrated, maybe even wounded. He had a _right_ to be wounded, and his father was still an unknown enemy out there - and she hadn't forgotten.

She hoped that helped somehow, his wound being acknowledged. She hoped that with enough time the wound would heal and then they could grow around the scar.

"Sit down and eat, Kate," he said softly. That the tenderness could come so quickly gave her heart a lift and she sat down beside him, pressed her shoulder to his, and passed him the bowl of scrambled eggs.

* * *

They opted to drive back to New York that night rather than stay in that little room downstairs. Neither of them could quite face those memories, and besides, they'd left Sasha at home. The moon had come out and the sky was clear, stars mere pricks of light against the oncoming traffic. The interstate was busy and Castle was driving so she could study him.

"Do we need to talk about it?" she said finally.

"No? No. I don't think so. Same as it ever was."

She'd said _I'm sorry_ a hundred times; it held no more power so she didn't try it. She smoothed her thumb across the bruise in the crook of her arm, pushed against the skin to feel the discomfort.

"I keep having these dreams," he said finally.

"Same dreams that make you so happy?" She wasn't stupid; his discomfort when she'd brought it up, the curious hunch of his shoulders, the only very slightly panicked look in his eyes had given him away. He wasn't having sex dreams about her.

"Yeah. Deeply happy," he rumbled. His voice had changed as well, that dark and rich texture that usually meant happy times for her too. But not this.

"And?"

"I dream of murdering him."

Oh.

She pressed her fingers flat to the bruise and wrapped her hand around her elbow, held her arms against her chest.

"Slitting his throat, usually. With a knife. That same knife. Ear to ear. We used to call it pumpkin carving."

"We?" she said, clearing her throat when the word stuck.

"The guys in the Special Ops group - the one attached to the Army in Afghanistan."

Pumpkin carving.

"Because you dig in and make a smile," he murmured.

She wondered if _he_ had called it pumpkin carving. She somehow couldn't imagine her husband ever having that level of callous disregard for human life.

"You never did that," she said. "You'd have made it quick."

He sighed.

She was right; she knew it. That one little breath.

"On Monday the grand jury convenes to hear sworn testimony," Castle said then.

"Yes," she answered. She knew this already. All the work this week had been to that end. She was becoming close friends with Agent McCord out of the AG's office, and Malone was like another little brother - the three of them coordinating the evidence. "Castle, dreaming about killing him isn't the same as actually doing it."

"I know that."

"So don't feel guilty for it. You can't control dreams. And if it helps - I don't know what King would say, but I say, go for it. Pumpkin carve, if that's what helps."

"I don't know that it helps," he rasped. "It feels mostly awful."

She reached across the center console and squeezed his thigh. "I know, sweetheart."

"It shouldn't feel awful. He deserves it. He _deserves_ it."

"Doesn't mean it won't feel awful. Even when justice comes, doesn't mean you're not knotted and tangled up inside."

He cast her a swift look and dropped his hand to lay over hers. "Your mom. I'm - sorry. I haven't even..."

"It feels mostly awful," she admitted. "But in a good way too? I don't know."

He laced their fingers together and brought her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. "I want to murder my own father, Kate. And here we are in the middle of a case to take down a man who stole your mother from us."

_From us_. She closed her eyes to the way that snared inside her, how Castle had never known her mother either, how that had been taken from them too. Castle, whose own mother was a little unreliable, could have benefitted from a mother like hers right now.

Maybe he could also benefit from his own.

They should probably talk about that.

* * *

Kate had fallen asleep by the time Castle parked the Range Rover in the underground parking garage a few blocks from their home. He'd found this strange little place nearly three months ago and the owner had been desperate for a lot of money fast. So Castle had paid for the next five years' worth of parking rental, and now there was absolutely no trail leading back to them, plus their identifiable car wasn't sitting out on the street.

He looked over at her sleeping form. Once again, Kate had talked him into having dinner with Martha.

She was good, his wife; she was very clever. He wasn't sure how she always managed it, but here they were again, Castle making a note on his phone to remind him to call in the morning. _It has to come from you._

He put the keys in his pocket and turned to study her in the passenger seat. Deep sleep had claimed her; she was a breath away from drooling. He almost reached out to wake her, but he gave himself a moment instead.

Despite his reluctance to really know his mother, despite even his issues with his father, this was good. Life was good. He didn't know when, exactly, in his youth he'd reconciled himself to the idea that life was only going to be tolerable at best, but now that it was _good_ - it was so good.

They'd joked about their 2003 selves, and he'd given her an idea of what his past had been like, but sitting in the car with his wife asleep, the tick of the engine as it cooled, and the visions they had for tomorrow made him sharply aware of how good he had it.

_Thank you_.

To who, to what, to an entity or being or force, Castle had no idea. But he felt like the gratitude was necessary to speak, give voice to, because to do otherwise was to take it for granted.

"Thank you," he murmured into the night.

Beside him, Kate stirred and her head rolled towards him. Her eyes were clear if tired, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

"We're here," he said softly.

"Mmm, good," she sighed. "Been waiting so long."

And then her eyes slipped shut like she was still in a dream.

* * *

Kate brushed her fingers over his neck to keep him quiet, moved away from the table to head for the bathroom.

They'd chosen a restaurant close to where Martha lived, and she'd been late, of course, but enthusiastic when she'd arrived. Kate had found herself being the mediator again, the ambassador between two entities who didn't even have a common language, but she didn't mind.

She went to the bathroom and washed her hands, hoped they were doing okay out there. She'd wanted to give Castle and his mother a chance to talk on their own, without her 'help', and when she came back out into the main room, she saw Martha was at least trying.

She sat down on Castle's side of the booth, patted his knee under the table. "Don't let me interrupt."

Martha beamed her a smile. "I was just telling a story about the show."

"Oh? What play are you doing? Can we come?"

Martha flushed and waved her off. "Oh, it's ages from now. But I would love for you two to see me. I adore this one - it's an off-Broadway production of a little known Coward play. It's about a woman who is washed up, forgotten - oh, it has so much in it I can relate to."

Beside Kate, Castle gave a little grunt of something she knew was _no shit_, but she elbowed him lightly and he dutifully kept the conversation going.

"You'll let us know when it starts?" he said. "We can work our schedule out."

"Of course." Martha looked flustered at this, like she hadn't expected her son to quite so boldly declare he'd make a special effort. Their relationship had improved in fits and starts, but it _had_ improved. They had dinners and drinks, they'd seen her one-woman production a few months ago, and Castle had even bought his mother a Christmas gift.

Oh, which they had never given her. Shit, she'd forgotten. "Oh, Martha, we have a Christmas gift for you at home. We need to send it to you."

"A - Christmas gift?" she said, her hands coming to her chest. "Oh, dear, that's lovely. You shouldn't have."

"Of course we should have," Kate laughed. "You're family. Rick's mother. We love you. We were just - a little indisposed this Christmas."

"Oh dear," Martha said, glancing over at Castle. "But everything is okay now?"

"I got sick," Castle sighed. "It was bad. Kate and I didn't get a chance to celebrate Christmas. But - I'm fine now. We figured it out, and we got what we needed. Kate saved my life."

Martha looked pale, and Kate realized they hadn't even _told_ her. And now Castle was telling his mother that he'd been deathly ill. She was fingering the jewel in her bright, heavy ring, and she gave her son a long look. "You were sick as a child. So sick," she murmured.

"We didn't want to worry you," Kate said softly.

Castle gave her a swift look, and she saw he realized it too, what they'd inadvertently told his mother - that she hadn't been first on the list when they had circled the wagons. The Office had known, Mitch and Espo and Ryan, Carrie, Kate's own father, but neither of them had thought to call Martha.

"We're having - uh, we're doing dinner at our house for my birthday," Castle said quickly. "If you come, we can give you your Christmas gift then."

Kate was stunned. He'd just invited his _mother_ to their home. He'd been so adamant that his mother couldn't be trusted with that responsibility, that she'd never take the steps necessary to keep from being followed, that she'd lead enemies back to them.

"Oh, of course, yes. Your birthday," Martha said softly, smiling at him. "April Fool's Day, and what a trick I pulled on them all. Having my boy. You know they told me not to."

Castle's fingers came to Kate's at his knee and tangled sharply, a squeeze of her hand that practically cut off her circulation. His mother had affected him, still affected him, and she leaned her shoulder against his in support.

"Rick was telling me about the last time he remembered getting sick," she started, trying to transition them away from the vulnerable places. "He said you took him to your dressing room and he cuddled up to the register?"

Martha smiled widely, but she was still giving Castle that fond look, the one that showed there was so much more to her story than an actress who had given up her son because he didn't fit into her life.

"He was a sickly kid," Martha said. "Every few months it was something else. At first, I took time off from a show to stay at home with him but then I couldn't - it was just so much time away."

"He was that sick as a kid?" Kate laughed. "No. Really?"

"All the time. Every cold - he caught it. He'd go to a friend's when I had a practice, and then he'd come down with stomach flu. One year when he was three, I promise, he had a cold from November until February. One after another."

Kate sat back in the booth, absolutely confounded by the idea of her super spy as a sickly little toddler.

Martha shook her head and gave a little sigh. "That's how he convinced me, you know."

Castle stiffened. "Convinced you."

"You were always so sick. Your father - he said, send him out of the city. Give his lungs a chance to heal, fresh air. So it was the boarding school for kindergarten. I could - I needed to work without - I had to work. We needed the money. And you _were_ better. The headmaster said you didn't have a single cold that year. And even with winter..."

Kate felt the awful dread building in her chest. "You mean boarding school was his father's idea. And then Castle was miraculously healed?"

Miraculously healed. The regimen. Had to be. The files from the Congo installation had said _Charlie One_, dated 1974, _Patient Zero_. 1974 - when Castle had been five years old.

"He had the money, and what could I..." Martha trailed off, cleared her throat with a dramatic wave of her hand, a narrowing of her brilliant blue eyes. "It's all in the past. It's over. Now for a birthday dinner. What are we having? I could make your birthday cake, darling!"

"We're having - pie," Castle said, sitting back. "But. I. Okay. Birthday cake. Kate?"

He turned to her with such desperation that she bit her bottom lip and nodded. "Of course. Martha, you bring the cake."

Was _Castle_ the Patient Zero in the program called Charlie One?


	4. Chapter 4

**Close Encounters 16**

* * *

"What do you think it means?" Kate nudged him. "Charlie One and your being sick as a kid."

Castle gripped her hand and tucked it into his back pocket, pulled out their subway cards from his wallet. She wriggled her fingers in his pocket, smirking at him, and then he gave her the card, took her hand back.

She took it from him, swiped through the turnstile and waited for him on the other side, their arms stretched across the distance.

"Castle."

"I don't know what it means," he answered finally. He pocketed both cards once more and followed her down to the platform. "I don't remember being _that_ sick."

"Everything the guys at Stone Farm have been saying made me think the regimen is what - what messed up your blood, right? But if you were sick all that time without it..."

"Kate, we can't possibly know that one has to do with the other."

She was silent and he knew it was a thinking silence, that she wasn't upset with him, but he still felt the need to reassure her that he was listening. He wasn't shutting her down.

"Maybe my father knew I'd need it," he offered. "Maybe - you saw those files from the installation in the Congo. The program had been going on for years. There are references in those pages to MKULTRA. You know what that was."

"I know - human experiments done by the CIA. But that was disbanded in the seventies."

"_That_ was, yes. But obviously there was some cross over. I mean, my father's subjects were being experimented on. Whose to say I wasn't too?"

"You were," she said sharply. "Being experimented on."

"No, I know. I mean, before I was five."

A train passed by them on the platform, rushing with noise and displacing their conversation. When it had disgorged passengers and reloaded, it pushed out of the station once more and Kate turned to him.

"Before you were five would mean from inception, Castle. And I just don't see how he could have done that. Your mother - she wasn't some lab experiment. He had a fling, a one night stand, as impossible as that sounds. She's talked about it. _He's_ talked about it. Remember?"

"He always said it was a mistake."

Kate sighed and cupped his neck, brushed a kissed against his lips. "You were definitely not a mistake. Best thing to ever happen to me."

He gave her a crooked grin and glanced into her eyes, swimming with love for him. "Hey. I'm good with it, Kate. I was just agreeing with you. I don't think he could've planned that, me. What happened. But once he knew I existed, he could have been trying to drug me the whole time."

She bit her lip and sighed, leaned her head into him for a moment. "That makes me sad."

"Don't be sad," he murmured, rubbing her back. "Look what I have. It all brought me here. To you. I'm the one who gets to have you."

"You do," she whispered. "You have me. I'm so lucky you're here."

* * *

"I blinked," she sighed.

Castle rolled over in bed and grabbed his phone, turned off the alarm with a slide of his finger across the cool screen. He dropped back onto the mattress and reached out to slide his other arm under her neck, roll her into him.

She grunted and curled tighter, hiding her face from the light that streamed in on his side of the bed.

"You blinked?" he asked. His voice was rough with sleep.

"I blinked and missed it. The weekend. I'm still tired and I don't want to get up."

He smiled and pulled the covers up over their heads, faster than she could protest, and he heard her laughing against him. He glanced down at her inside their dark cocoon and she lifted her head to put her chin on his shoulder.

"We can't stay here," she said, but she didn't sound convinced.

"We have work to do," he admitted. The cocoon was a little suffocating, and he had to hold the covers taut so he could see her. "But you looked beautiful this morning when you opened your eyes, and I want to keep it."

She pressed her lips to his chest, a soft sigh of her breath, and she slid upwards to then give his mouth the same. The dark flavor of sleep rested between her lips and he dropped the covers to wrap his arms around her.

"Time to get up," she murmured.

Kate shifted on top of him and pushed the covers back, rising up with her knees bracketing his ribs. She lifted her arms over her head and stretched, her spine arching and her shirt riding up. He palmed her thighs and skimmed his knuckles along that exposed stretch of skin; she shivered and dropped her arms with a laugh.

"Shower?" she asked.

"We'll be late," he warned her.

"Is that a promise?"

"Well, now it is," he grinned. Castle sat up, catching her before she could fall, and he wrapped his arm under her ass and carried her into the bathroom.

Just another day.

* * *

"I'm meeting Agent McCord in Midtown in an hour," she said hurriedly. "I have to go. I have to _go_."

Castle released her with a sigh, but he heard Malone chuckling behind them. He turned in the lobby and the computer programmer was coming from the direction of the parking garage entrance. "You going too?"

"No," Malone shook his head. "I'm cataloging digital recordings of all phone calls made from Bracken's burner cell to the strip club. Yay."

Kate laughed and Castle shook his head in sympathy. They'd just finished their lunch break - Kate had dragged him out for Chinese, sitting on a bench in Central Park and messing around - and now he was reluctant to let her go.

He pouted in her direction and she rolled her eyes, reached out to grab him by his ears. Her kiss was a little brutal in retaliation for his clinging, but when she released him, the tenderness in her eyes was unmistakable.

"I said I'd walk you back to the Office, and I've done my duty," she said. "Now I seriously have to go."

This time, Beckett was the one who didn't seem to want to let go; her fingers trailed along his forearm and finally down.

"Hey, I almost forgot," Malone said, nearly past them and turning around now to speak to Beckett. "You know that transcript with the alternate spelling? Can you ask McCord about that?"

"Oh, I'm glad you reminded me," Kate said. She pulled her phone out and checked it, started making a note, and Castle realized the conversation had gone on to details beyond him. He chuckled and leaned in, kissed Kate's cheek.

"See you tonight, sweetheart."

"Yeah," she said easily. Her kiss missed him but she was heading for Malone. "Okay, so the alternate spelling was one. What about the testimony from Bout? Did we decide one way or another?"

Castle left them to conference in the lobby and he went on to the elevators alone. He had meetings of his own, including a brief on the search for Black, and the results of his team working on the New York organized crime angle.

* * *

Beckett was just coming out of the subway station when her phone vibrated in her hand. She was running late to the meeting with McCord, and she was tempted to let it go to voicemail, but when she glanced at the ID, she saw it was Dr Boyd.

She answered.

"Kate?" he said. "This is Dr Boyd at Stone Farm."

She gave a choked laugh. "Yeah, Dr Boyd, I think I know who you are by now."

The man laughed on the other end, and he sounded completely fine. None of that cautious and careful tone to his voice that he'd had when he told her Castle was most likely dying.

"Is this about Castle's check-up?" she prompted.

"Oh, no. It's about yours."

"Mine?"

"I thought it might be the case. After all, you did talk with me about it back when we first looked at the regimen, but I wanted to be sure-"

"Is it the anemia?"

"No, no, your iron levels are actually - well, yes, in a manner of speaking. I'm writing you a prescription for some vitamins you'll need, but I wanted to check with you first since you might not what me calling it in to the Office."

"Why not?" she said, totally confused by Dr Boyd's _eagerness_. "What's wrong with the pills?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing. But they're prenatal vitamins. Kate, you're pregnant."

She dropped her phone.

It slipped right out of her fingers. It was only instinct and reflex that made her grab for it, grabbing it in mid-air, and she flushed bright red, pushing it back to her ear as she stepped out of the flow of traffic on the sidewalk. "I'm what? I'm pregnant."

"Yes, yes you are. This is good news? Well, I wanted to tell you immediately. Give you the chance to figure out where I should send this prescription."

Oh no, no. She did not want the Office to know; no one could know but her and Castle. "Thank you for thinking of that. I'll - Castle will call and let you know a safe place."

A drug store entirely out of their normal radius. And then - no credit card purchases, no doctor's visits on record...

"You're about three weeks along, based on these results; it's very early. But you should make a doctor's appointment soon. Somehow. I'd love to treat you, Kate, but alongside an actual OB, since I don't have recent experience in that department."

Kate laughed, still stunned. "Yeah, yeah, we'll find someone we can trust," she rasped.

"Congratulations to you both, Kate."

"Thank you," she breathed out, suddenly hit with it.

She was pregnant.

The call ended and she stared down at her phone, putting her back to the skyscraper and trying to fathom it. How was she supposed to sit in a meeting now? She wanted to rush back to the Office and find Castle and tell him, see his face when he heard the news.

She opened her contacts to call, but she stopped, couldn't. She couldn't. She wanted to do it in person, wanted to see, wanted to know, to give him this. She'd tell him tonight, make it special, dinner together and something - she'd have to figure out some way to give him the news - maybe her detective's notebook or that beautiful story about the baby elephant.

She was pregnant. The potato cakes and being so tired all weekend but so _buzzing_ with energy, how everything had felt so good, so good, and-

oh, Castle was going to be a daddy.

* * *

At one o'clock, Castle sat down with the analyst in charge of researching the repercussions of Bracken's fall from grace within the organized crime section of New York. The man, Ken Walker, was young and a little too slick for Castle's liking, but he came with all his facts.

The presentation was fast, the report detailed, and the numbers were sobering.

The city was going to take a hit. A big one. Revenue was revenue, whether it was legal or not, and a big organization like Bracken's going down meant the money would dry up for a while. Which meant, conversely, crime would be up.

This wasn't usually the CIA's call, but it was part of the Joint Task Force's effort to investigate all the various members.

"Agent Castle?"

He glanced up from the report and the man was hesitating at the table, his hands in fists. "What do you need, Walker?"

"I just thought you should know. While I was culling information on this man, Finn Rourke, a few things stood out."

Finn Rourke. "This is the leader of the Westies?"

"He's on Bracken's payroll. His crew are enforcers."

"That doesn't make sense." Dick Coonan's brother had been one of the Westies, and Dick had murdered him when he'd started sniffing around the drug trade. "Finn Rourke despised Coonan for killing one of his own. Why would he turn around and partner with the man who ordered that hit?"

"Exactly," Walker said, letting out a long breath. "I thought so too. I wanted to bring it up because it makes no sense at all. I've been turning it over in my mind, trying to figure out how in the world Finn Rourke would ever agree to enforce for Bracken's group."

"And what did you come up with?"

"A common enemy," Walker said. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Castle's heart stuttered. "Us. We're the common enemy."

"Yes, sir," Walker nodded. "That's the only thing I can figure out. But how did they know there was an enemy to team up against? How did Bracken find out we were investigating? I'm afraid.. there might be a leak."

Castle rubbed a hand down his face. A leak, sure. But Castle was betting it was Black. His father had told the right people to get it back to Bracken that there was an open investigation, all in a bid to fuck Castle over once again.

No, not Castle. _Kate_.

He lifted his head and pinned Walker with a sharp glance. "Actually, Agent Walker, I need you to look into this for me on the Westies side of things. What they know, what their plans might be. Okay? I'll take care of the leak."

Walker nodded and stood up straight. "Yes, sir. I'll get right on that."

The moment he was out the door, Castle called Kate.

* * *

Beckett rolled her neck on her shoulders and stepped out of the building's front door. McCord was still up in an endless meeting with the prosecutor, but Malone was coming down here to meet her with the copies of the files they needed for the next stage of the grand jury testimony, so she had a few minutes to herself.

The sunlight felt good on her face. Shit, it could be a miserable cloudy day and she'd feel this good anyway. She made a fist and pressed her knuckles into her belly button, smiling, carrying around a secret. Three weeks. Three weeks was...

Holy shit, the Congo.

No.

She laughed and tilted her head back to the sun, closed her eyes. How ridiculous, how _them_. Maybe the worst thing she'd ever done to him and the most hopeful, yet hopeless she'd ever felt. The regimen within their reach but Castle so far.

That one time in the tent. Before the river and the hippo. One time in a tent, she thought, and that was what had done it. Forgiveness and a blessing both.

She wanted to call him. She wanted to hear his voice and have him know what was coming, know this amazing thing they'd done.

_Remember when we landed in the Congo and hiked through a rain forest? Well..._

"Beckett."

She startled and sighed at herself for not paying better attention. Malone was hustling up the street, his tie flapping in the breeze. He was giving her a funny look - probably because of the stupid one on her face - and he was clutching the satchel of files against his side.

"Beckett," he said, a little breathless. "I've got it all here."

And then her phone rang, sharp and strident in the warm day. She pulled it out with two fingers - it was Castle; she knew by the ring tone _Nobody Does It Better_ - and she laughed. It was just - so _true - _especially now, and she answered it, holding a finger up to Malone.

"Hey, there, baby," she smiled.

"Beckett, you - hey. You sound... good."

"I'm good. What's up?" Malone came to her side now, opened up the satchel to show her. There was one of those heavy-duty diplomat cases inside, the kind with major locks, and she rolled her eyes at Malone's zealousness. "Malone just got here with the stuff we need. We're good."

"No, I'm not calling about that. I'm calling because that guy I had on the crime organizations - Walker?"

Walker. "Oh, right. Yeah. What about that?" She was having a hard time concentrating, so caught up in how she _knew_ how much he wanted this, how much it meant to him, and now here it was. But she swallowed it back and scanned the sidewalk where they stood, determined to be professional.

"He said Finn Rourke is working enforcer for Bracken's group."

"What? No. That - no. That makes no sense." Beckett put her back to the office building and sharpened her gaze on the street. Malone had distracted her, caught her attention; she should have been watching. The sidewalk was so empty, all of the sudden; she saw four people far down the block, and what she thought was the reflection of police lights on the cross street.

"No sense at all. If Rourke is doing jobs for him, then it means they're closing ranks, defending themselves."

"Against us," she breathed. "Shit. Who told? Who let it out that we were investigating? The grand jury isn't exactly Fort Knox, but for Bracken to have an established relationship with the Westies means they've known for a long time."

"That was my thought too."

And now there was no one in sight on the sidewalk. She and Malone were the only two on the block, and the hair rose on the back of her neck. "Castle. Castle, I have a bad feeling-"

The black SUV roared out of nowhere and came for them, engine gunning. She shouted and Malone dived her direction, but the front grill clipped his leg and he came down hard on one knee. Kate scrambled for her weapon, ditching her phone to get at it, and she crouched at Mal's side, got her shoulder under his armpit to help him up.

She heard another car screeching up behind them, but the shot came before she could even move. Malone's shirt bloomed like a rose. His mouth opened, closed, and he sagged in her grip.

"Castle. Malone is shot," she shouted towards the phone, dropping beside Malone and hunching over his body. She saw the doors opening on the SUV and took aim at the windows, firing four rounds. Her phone was on the sidewalk, but she couldn't get to it; she had to believe Castle could hear the gunshots over the speaker.

"Beckett," Malone wheezed, eyes wide, staring past her.

"Mal, stay with me-"

She was yanked off her knees by two men, coming from behind her, not even the guys in the SUV. An arm came around her throat and she brought her gun back, fired into someone's knee. A shout of pain and they both fell back, but the other one grabbed her wrist and brought his knee into her forearm.

Her fingers instantly went numb and the weapon clattered out of her hand; she didn't stop to lunge after it, she just went for her assailant's face. She shattered his nose with an elbow driven straight back, but now guys were pouring out of the front SUV and descending on them.

The butt of a rifle came towards her face and Beckett wrenched out of their grip, twisted violently so that it only glanced off her shoulder. But that was bad enough; stars of pain bloomed bright across her eyes and she jerked out of one man's hands only to be caught by another. She staggered into him, used her momentum to throw him off-balance, and then she was running.

She sprinted for the next block, trying to stagger her run so that she was a smaller target, her shoes echoing awfully on the concrete. She saw the blue lights of the cop car and swerved that direction, making for the police officer already approaching her.

"FBI," she called. "FBI. I'm-"

He reached forward and caught her around the waist, lifted her off her feet, and she knew.

He wasn't a cop.

And then he slammed her against the car and her head crunched against the door frame and everything exploded with black.

* * *

Castle was in the parking garage running for his car before the first gunshots went quiet. He cradled the phone against his ear and launched himself inside the vehicle, Mitchell shouting for him to _wait the fuck for us. _Esposito was right on his six, weapon already in hand.

Castle could hear her fighting. On the phone. He could _hear her_ fighting for her life.

The engine gunned and roared in the echoing garage, and Castle jerked it into gear and floored it out of the narrow space. Mitchell got his door shut right before he could clip the car beside him, and he was on the phone with tactical, barking out orders.

Castle barreled down the exit drive and busted straight through the security arm, but he had to wait at the garage door for it to register his official chip. Espo in the back was cursing, a long string of Spanish that made Castle's heart beat hard in time to every punctuated _fuck_. His ID badge got him through and he was scraping the roof of the Land Rover on the bottom of the half-raised door as he barreled straight out into the street.

He ignored the horns and zipped around afternoon traffic with the blue lights running on the dashboard. Mitchell was gripping the handhold at the top of the door frame, none of them had seat belts on, but he couldn't care. He concentrated on traffic and getting to midtown. Getting to Kate.

"Castle." He heard his name but he didn't hear it, didn't hear anything.

He took the next left and squealed around the corner, not slowing a second, and then Mitchell was snatching the phone from his tight grip on the steering wheel.

"Castle, listen. Listen."

Mitch put his phone on speaker - the IT guys in the Office had taken Beckett's line and piped it through their channels, so _everyone_ was listening. And then he heard it. The man's voice - their friend's voice.

"Mal?" he called tightly. "Mal-"

"Castle. Gone."

"Mal?"

"S-sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Malone," he shouted, as if the force of his volume could will Malone into staying with them. "Don't be sorry, just hang in there."

"Took it. 'S gone. Took it."

"They took it?" he choked. Was Kate-

"Took it. Files." Mal took a sharp breath that popped on the speakers, sounded like something in his lungs had broken.

"They took the files?" The silence to his question was crackling on the line, too much ambient noise and not enough of Malone. "Mal. Come on. Talk to me. Stay with me. Mal? We're almost there. We're so close."

A sound of breathing, or last breaths, he couldn't tell, and the white noise on the line hissed with so much meaningless nothing that Castle slammed his hand into the steering wheel and gave it more gas.

He was going 110 mph now and they were so close. Just down the block, just right there.

They weren't close enough.

He could see the form on the ground now, the dark shape in the sunlight. Malone. No Kate.

He slammed up onto the curb right beside the man's body and already Esposito was out with his weapon, rolling to the sidewalk before Castle could put it in park. He left the engine on and ran to Malone's side. He could hear the ambulance sirens in the distance.

The blood was soaked through Malone's shirt, staining the sidewalk. Espo was crouched over him with a hand to the wound, futile as it was, and his weapon at the ready.

Castle dropped beside him and Mal's eyes turned slowly to his. "Sorry. I'm - so sorry. Kate."

"Where - what happened to her?" he gruffed, taking the hand as it fumbled at his pant leg. "Malone. You're gonna be fine. We'll get you paramedics. You're going to be fine. What happened to Kate? Was she shot?"

"Kate's... gone."

"Gone."

"Took it all," Malone whispered. His eyes fixed and didn't move, breath gone. Gone.

"Mal. Malone. Come on, man, don't-"

Mitchell shoved him away, started doing chest compressions, but Malone wasn't - he was gone. Castle got slowly to his feet, his body heavy like lead, lungs collapsing in.

They'd taken Kate.


	5. Chapter 5

**Close Encounters 16**

* * *

McCord's face was white as she flew out of the federal building and met him on the sidewalk. "What-"

"She's gone," Castle said tightly. "I need all the footage from the last hour - round up every angle, the-"

"No, there's not - we turned off all the cameras."

"What?" he harshed, twisting back to her.

"For the protection of the grand jury," she said slowly. Her eyes closed. "We turned everything off."

Castle spun on the sidewalk, the block a riot of police and FBI, his CIA colleagues like ghosts around the fringes. He spotted a drug store across the street and pointed with his walkie talkie. "That. They'll have surveillance-"

"We turned everything off," McCord repeated. "I'm sorry. Beckett thought of everything."

Castle growled and scraped his hand down his face; the walkie chattered and he lifted it to his ear.

"Walker's on his way to you." It was Mitchell, no call sign, no warning, and no good-bye. Castle stood his ground and gestured for Esposito.

"Talk to Rachel, get a statement, and you two figure out the Task Force. You'll need to coordinate these assholes at the NYPD and liaise with the FBI. Espo-"

"I got this," Esposito cut in. "Ryan's with Walker - headed this way."

"Mitch radioed me," he acknowledged. Agent McCord brought Esposito over towards her clump of Secret Service and Attorney General guys, and Castle turned around at the call of his name.

Ryan was hustling the analyst towards him; Walker looked electric with triumph, and while normally Castle would give it to him, this was his fucking wife.

"Walker. I need every bit of intel you scraped together on the Westies."

"The _Westies_?" Ryan clipped.

"I think so too. Definitely," Walker said in a rush. "Had to be them. This way it looks like an old vendetta against a cop and not Bracken - the one who had a Westies member killed."

"Walker. Tell me."

"Right, right," Walker said. Castle was already yanking him towards his Land Rover, dragging both guys with him. Walker tripped on the curb and Castle hauled him upright, still moving.

"Talk to me, Walker. I need everything you know. They have no reason to keep Beckett alive. Do you understand me?"

"Shit," Ryan swore.

"But they do," Walker said, shaking his head. "They do actually. Malone was carrying half of the solid evidence in that case, and they took it."

"It's not even - it was a fucking print-out. It's not like it was something that can't be replaced."

"I know that, you know that, but it's a diplomatic case. It's sealed and locked. And there's no way to get into it without the combination. Short of like, dynamite or something."

"Isn't that what Bracken wants?" Ryan interrupted. "Destroy evidence?"

"Bracken, yes," Walker nodded, jumping into the backseat and grabbing his seat belt. Castle got behind the wheel and barely waited for Ryan to hop in with him. Walker was still talking fast. "Bracken doesn't care what we know; he wants the evidence destroyed. But the Westies - they'll have their own agenda. Remember, Agent Castle? The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

The enemy of my-

"That's us. Beckett. The common enemy."

"Also - the friend. Beckett could be a friend," Walker said, raising his voice to be heard. All of his slickness and charm had gone in the face of a good puzzle, a solid bit of deductive reasoning, and Castle somehow liked him better. And not just because Walker had given them hope.

"Walker. You're telling me they'd let her live so they could get into the case? Get the evidence and use it against Bracken?"

"Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I think they're itching for the opportunity to get out from under Bracken. Finn Rourke takes orders from no man."

Castle gripped the steering wheel harder as they navigated out of the crush of official vehicles. "Walker. Please tell me you have a photographic memory and you know the locations of every single warehouse and stomping ground of the Westies."

"No, sir, I do not have a photographic memory. But I did take the liberty of doing something treasonous."

"What's that?"

"I took a picture of that information on my phone."

"Walker," Castle said tightly. "You're fucking absolved. Immunity. Now tell me where to go. Most likely place."

"New Jersey. Take the Lincoln Tunnel. I'll MapQuest it."

"MapQuest?" Ryan snorted. "Walker, we're the CIA. We have better tools than that."

Castle felt the absurdity of all of it cracking open his chest, and he had to fight down the urge for hysterical laughter.

"Walker," Castle started, pushing it down. "I don't even remember your first name."

"Kenneth. Kenny. It's Ken, sir. I'm sorry, I'm just an analyst. I don't go out in the field."

"Ken, you help me find my wife, you help me with this, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Retirement at twenty-five. I'll take care of it."

"Sir, I - no. I don't want - I'd rather just keep doing my job."

"Fine, that's fine," Castle said. The car went dark as they entered the Tunnel. "Then you get my office, Ken. And you get to stay in the car when Ryan and I go in."

"Oh."

Beside him, Ryan clicked off his seatbelt and climbed into the back, started opening up the cache of weapons Castle always kept stored under the seat.

"Ryan," Castle said shortly. "Call Espo. Tell him and Mitch where to meet us. No one else. No on else can know."

* * *

The bounce of tires over something in the road jolted Beckett awake, her cheek smashing against the inside of the trunk. Felt like a damn speed bump and the car doing fifty miles per hour over it.

Her mouth was watering. Blood crusted in her eye from the head wound. She couldn't see, but the trunk was close and dark and it might just be that.

She felt like throwing up, saliva filling her throat, and she swallowed it down, leaned carefully onto her stomach and breathed into the synthetic fibers of the carpet. Oil and bleach.

Oil.

And bleach.

Oh, God.

They'd had to bleach the trunk.

Kate pressed her forehead into the carpet, growling low in her throat to keep it together. Her hands were bound behind her back, her feet trussed, and her knees were half pulled up under her. She rolled to her side, wincing as her shoulder throbbed with pain, but that was the old injury from Tunisia; that she could deal with. A red light filled the trunk and she could sense the car slowing as it made a turn, but her scrambled brain couldn't keep track of the direction.

Not good.

She rotated her ankles, flexed her feet. Duct tape and it was tight, but the good thing about duct tape was once she got it started, it'd be easy to enough to tear. She cautiously lifted her upper body until she hit the underside of the trunk lid, estimated the size of the space.

It had to be the cop car. The fake cop car. The other two vehicles in the ambush had been SUVs. No one was going to stop an NYPD cruiser.

Her arms were beginning to throb in this position, but it afforded her the best opportunity for escape. If she could get her feet free, she could kick out at whoever opened the trunk.

Kate arched her back and slowly brought her heels to her ass until the tips of her fingers brushed her pants. She felt along the material until she could get a sense of where she was, and then she started picking at the tape.

* * *

Castle breached the door and stormed inside, shouting FBI and making noise, his automatic shotgun ready to fire.

The warehouse was empty save for a range of high-end automobiles halfway disassembled for parts.

Castle couldn't believe it. Ryan came up at his back with a grunt. "Nothing."

"_Fuck_." Castle slammed his fist into the metal support beam, felt the crack of knuckles and bone, kicked his foot into it once more to make the pain flood his synapses. "Fucking hell. Fuck." He stalked off, heading back for the door as his chest tightened.

"It's only the first place on the list," Ryan called out, trotting at his side. "There are five more."

"We don't have the fucking _time._ She doesn't have time." He smacked his hand against the top of the door frame as he passed under it, felt the rattle of pain dance down his arm and up his shoulder.

Walker was out of the car, standing uncertainly halfway to the warehouse. "Is she-?"

Ryan shook his head. "Chop shop." He turned back to Castle and held up a cautioning palm. "Castle. We have five more."

_You need to hold it together._

"Okay, okay," Castle said, trying to stay calm. "No one's here, Walker. Where to next?" Walker hadn't been able to give Castle any kind of 'best shot' estimate, but he had plotted all the points on the map and they'd simply driven to the closest one that felt right.

"Next is the Animal Hospital."

"Animal Hospital?" he said, heading for the car. The warehouse district in New Jersey was right off the Tunnel, and it had looked the part, it had felt so right, so _right_ for this, but what if they were totally wrong?

"Animal Hospital," Walker confirmed. "Seacaucus Animal Hospital. Rourke's brother-in-law owns the land that the Animal Hospital uses to rehab their patients. Dense, wooded area. Lots of places to go missing."

"Animal Hospital it is," Castle growled. He slid behind the wheel and started the ignition, carefully laid his automatic shotgun between the seats. Ryan, in his vest and looking like a combat officer, put on his seatbelt.

Castle pulled out of the back loading dock and onto the road. "Walker. Navigate."

"Turn left at the light."

Animal Hospital. Fucking hell.

They had to make it in time. He _had_ to make it in time.

* * *

Before she could get the tape peeled away from her ankles, the trunk popped open and five guns were pointed down at her.

Beckett froze.

One reached inside and hauled her out by one of her arms and by the twisted duct tape around her ankles, her ass hitting the lip of the trunk and her head hitting the top. She groaned and swallowed it down, curled inward as she was tossed carelessly to the ground.

Her elbows hit the earth, and she looked up, saw the trees, the sky, felt the cold wash of clouds and smog that covered the sun.

It had started to mist, and the water collected in her hair and snaked down her forehead, made her fingers start to go numb. Five men stood around her in a loose ring, the open trunk and the car only ten feet away. The two SUVs were parked up higher, on something that looked like a service road, while she and the men were in a more wooded area.

Five men. Five guns. Four trained on her, one pointed carefully at the ground. She studied the men as they studied her, and then the one holstered his weapon and threw something in front of her face.

The satchel. Stained with blood. Malone was dead; they had shot Malone for this.

"Open it."

"No."

She pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to find her feet, tried to stand, but the one came in close and shoved her roughly back down. She couldn't brace herself; her hands were tied behind her still. Her face hit the satchel, bouncing off the metal case inside, and she ducked her head, tried to pull her knees up again.

"Open it."

She grit her teeth and lifted her head. "I can't open shit with my hands tied behind my back."

Four of them looked as stupid as dirt, but that one. He held up a staying hand when one of the apes moved to untie her; he shook his head and studied her intently.

"No." His gun came back out, but he didn't point it at her. "Open it."

"Fuck you."

He didn't react, but the other four shifted, got nervous. Black leather jackets, tattoos, the reek of beer on the guy closest to her, a familiarity she tried to place. Thugs. They looked like low-level thugs.

Except this one.

"Open it, girlie, or I will make you fucking hurt." He scuffed the dirt with his toe and she saw he was wearing black combat boots - probably steel-toed.

Oh, fuck.

No. He absolutely could not kick her.

_Girlie_. Who used to say that? Something, someone, somewhere. Memory prodded at her. "Wait, you're Westies. Why the hell are you here for him?"

The leader stepped back, glanced to his comrades. "Think about it. Now open the fucking case."

The _case_. They wanted this? Some fucking print-outs? Against Bracken. "Why? What does that help you at all? Let us prosecute the bastard, and you do whatever the hell you want - take over his fucking territory."

"Bastard?" a voice rang out. "Well, well. Not very civil of you, Agent Beckett."

Kate lifted her head and saw him coming through the trees, black trench coat, black suit, hands in his pockets.

William Bracken.

She opened her mouth to retort, anger shimmering through her, but stopped. Held her tongue. Waited.

"I need to know what you know," Bracken said as he drew near. His hands came out of the pockets of his trench coat and she saw he wore brown leather gloves. He cracked his knuckles - one at a time - and nodded at the man in charge of the Westies.

She didn't even see it coming. His booted foot tucked into her ribs, kicking with enough force to propel her up and flip her onto her back, agony ricocheting through her body.

She gasped through it, sucking in air, whistling through pain, staring up at the trees, her fingers crunched underneath her. A duller pain, sharp but not sharp enough to really register, pushed against her hands twisted under her back. And then she realized the pain was a thing, and she found it was a rock.

An arrowhead of a rock.

She shifted to arch her back just slightly, gasped when it reverberated in her ribs. But she got the pointed rock against the tape and started digging.

Bracken came over and filled her field of vision, looming above her and blocking out the scrap of sky.

"I need," Bracken started slowly, "to know. What. You. Know."

Her head was swimming, her ribs shifting with pain; she turned her head and vomited on his shoes, felt a hundred times worse.

"Nice," Bracken said acidly. "Open the case, Agent Beckett. I need to know what I have to fight against."

If she did, they'd shoot her the moment it was open. If she didn't...

Her guts clenched.

"No," she whispered, still sawing away at the duct tape. The boot caught her hip this time and made her yelp, but she held on to the rock, held on, held on, her body in a rictus of pain, rolling in the dirt.

"This can go on for a number of hours," Bracken said. "But I fear my hours in this city are drawing to a close. Eddie. Kill her."

No.

No, no, _no_. This was _not_ how Castle was going to find out. He was not going to get the news from a fucking autopsy report.

She refused to let that moment get stolen from him, from _her_. She was not dying today.

And then the duct tape broke.

Bracken was already walking away.

* * *

Ryan punched the phone on speaker and held it up. Esposito's voice came through clearly as Castle sped down I-95.

"We know how they did it. Barricaded the cross streets for the whole block with NYPD cruisers, came in with two SUVs and took Beckett cleanly. One of those - an Officer Barry Kovakevic - radioed in when dispatch did roll call, but a witness statement IDs him as being in the area. A woman was running towards the officer, and Kovak body slammed her onto his car."

_Kate_.

"Where's this fucking asshole right now?" Castle gritted out.

"We've GPS tracked his cruiser and he's in Seacaucus, New Jersey, off I-95."

"Any chance that's adjacent to an Animal Hospital?" Ryan put in.

"Let me zoom in," Espo said on the other end.

Castle's heart was frantic in his chest; he nudged up their speed.

"Be on the lookout for the exit," Walker said from the back seat. "It's coming up."

"Yeah, think so," Esposito said. "Yeah, here it is on the map. Seacaucus Animal Hospital. Sitting just off the property. Or well, could be their property still."

Adrenaline surged in Castle's bloodstream and he prayed to God that the regimen made him damn near invincible. He gripped the steering wheel and caught the sign with his eyes, took the exit ramp at a hundred miles an hour, barely slowed to make the turn onto the country highway.

"Whoa," Ryan said.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he answered Espo. "I need you here ASAP."

"We're about ten minutes out."

"We don't have five minutes," Castle barked. "I need you here right now. Ryan and I are going in alone."

"Fuck."

* * *

"Wait!"

Bracken paused.

"Wait, I'll - tell you. I'll tell you," she croaked. Buying time. Just some time. Her hands were free; she needed a plan.

Bracken turned around and his chin nodded towards her.

Eddie, the leader, dragged her upright and on her knees; she shook and slumped backwards, feigning a dizziness she actually did feel, and the man yanked her up again.

"So tell," Bracken said, coming back to her and flexing his fingers in his brown leather gloves.

"The case," she started, letting her head tilt to one side like it was too heavy to keep up. It hurt to breathe. "Case against you. It's airtight."

A plan, a plan. She needed to do this. Had to do this. Castle had no way of knowing where she'd been taken, and this was happening now - the end was now.

"Airtight."

She needed something, something good, attention; she needed to keep his attention. "We have people on tape."

"People?" That had done it. He was interested.

"Key people. Witnesses. On the record. Giving grand jury testimony."

"_Grand jury,_" Eddie hissed. His eyes narrowed at Bracken and Beckett realized they'd been left in the dark. It gave her a way in, gave her confidence.

"Where'd you think I was this afternoon, boys? Overseeing the case in front of the grand jury. That was a federal building, you know. It's _rife_ with surveillance cameras - they got your faces on video. They'll come for you. I'm a federal agent."

"Fucking hell," one of the apes shouted.

"Shut up, Frank," Eddie spat back at him. "The cameras were all turned off."

Who the _fuck_ had told them that?

"And you," Eddie said, rounding on Bracken. "You're up before a grand jury?"

"I did not know this infor-"

"Crew!" Eddie snapped and the apes jerked their weapons towards Bracken.

Kate sank down on her heels and started sawing on the tape at her feet, trying not to attract their attention.

"Can we finish this first?" Bracken sneered. His bravado was so well-done that it actually came across as command. Eddie glanced to his Westies crew and they eased up on the triggers, but at least half the weapons were still pointed at Bracken.

And not at Kate.

"We get what she knows first," Bracken went on, "and then you get what you want."

The one closest to her, the ape who had been about to untie her, was one of the idiots not pointing a weapon her direction.

"Or maybe," Eddie said with a sneer, "maybe, I take what I want."

She felt the tape giving way around her ankles. She sucked in a slow - slow, agonizing - breath, trying to steady herself. Her body ached so badly she had trouble keeping it in, but she lifted carefully back to her knees and shifted to get half her foot against the ground.

Crouched.

"The Westies are a two-bit organization. Even if you took control, Eddie Rourke, you'd still have control of _nothing_."

It wasn't _Finn_; it was Eddie who had made a deal with Bracken.

Kate calculated her odds. Six men, five carrying, one a maybe. Four weapons out right now, and two of them were on Bracken.

But two were on her.

"Who gave testimony against me?" Bracken said, turning back to her. "Tell me or I'll shoot you. Make it slow."

Where? Where would he shoot her? Arm? Knee? She could survive; they'd survive that for a while.

"Agent Beckett. I am not playing around. Tell me who so I can deal with them. And I'll make yours merciful."

"The list is endless," she lied. "It goes on and on. Everyone is jumping at the chance to turn against you. Right, Eddie?"

Eddie's gaze snapped back to her so quickly, she knew she'd made a mistake. She shouldn't have drawn his attention. Now he knew she was planning.

He narrowed his eyes. "Frank. Check her wrists and ankles. Here." He tossed the roll of duct tape towards the ape closest to her, and this was it.

This was the only chance she'd get.

Make her move now, or die.


	6. Chapter 6

**Close Encounters 16: Skyfall**

* * *

_He narrowed his eyes. "Frank. Check her wrists and ankles. Here." He tossed the roll of duct tape towards the ape closest to her, and this was it._

_This was the only chance she'd get._

_Make her move now, or die._

Beckett lunged for Frank, one hand catching his wrist and wrapping her other arm around his neck in a choke hold. She pushed the gun away and Frank pumped out two reflexive gunshots; one clipped Bracken as he shot back.

She felt the impact of the bullet in Frank's chest; he immediately sagged in her grip but kept fighting her. His feet were tangling with hers, he was screaming something and trying to get at her, but she curled tightly at his back and used him as a shield, tried to drag him back towards the trees.

Another shot caught the base of his throat, and it missed her arm by a breath.

Frank gurgled blood through the wound and his grip on the weapon slacked enough for her to shove her finger into the trigger guard. She shot two more guys before one of them - Eddie - quit trying to be nice and simply unloaded his weapon into Frank, jerking them both backwards, her dizziness and agony making her stumble.

She fell, Frank on top of her, and her head hit the ground with a burst of white light. Frank's body groaned and toppled off of her, a screen between her and the rest of them.

It saved her life. Bracken's bullet went low and blew out Frank's brains, spattering grey matter against her cheek and ear, pieces of skull stinging her forehead. She gritted her teeth, mouth closed, and rolled fast away from the dead man, into winter grass and careful green shoots, thumping hard against a tree at the line of the woods.

More bullets now, more than seemed right for six guys, but there'd been three SUVs and maybe she'd never even had a chance.

Beckett curled compactly into the space at the base of the tree, crawled around its trunk for some measure of protection. She had Frank's weapon by some fucking miracle, and she raised up against the tree to fire back.

Bracken was nearly on top of her.

Beckett shouted in a gut-punch of fear, stumbling backwards even as Bracken raised his weapon and aimed.

But she pulled the trigger first.

His body listed back and then the boom of gunpowder rattled in her head as her gunshot registered on her senses. Bracken tipped to one side and his face twisted; she didn't hesitate this time. She pressed her hips to the tree for stability, protection, and she braced the weapon as straight as she could manage, and she fired.

She fired until the rounds stopped filling the chamber. Until the senator's body was crumpled on the earth and staining it black-red. She fired until the spitting rain obscured her vision as it clumped in her lashes.

She fired until her knees gave way.

* * *

The rain made it impossible to see; the clouds had dampened the sun and the day was dark. Castle pushed the Land Rover over the access road, ignoring potholes and tree roots, plowing his way through the shadows and deeper into the woods.

"Not too close," Ryan said grimly. "We need the element of surprise, Castle. I know you want to ride in like the cavalry."

He eased up on the accelerator and tried to keep a grip on the reins of his self-control. "Walker, how much farther?"

"With Esposito's GPS coordinates, it looks like... a hundred yards."

Castle slammed on the brakes and they all pitched forward. "Shit," he breathed. "Too close. We go on foot. Fast. Ryan, grab the GPS; you're with me. Walker, stay in the car."

Castle jumped down from the Rover and grabbed the automatic shotgun, reached into his shoulder holster for the Sig. With a weapon in each hand, he met Ryan at the hood of the car and they started forward into the trees.

He crept heel-toe through the dry underbrush, scattered remnants of winter and signs of spring. The trees were close together and shadowed, the woods smelled of animal urine and pheromones.

"Ry," he said quietly, "I made you a promise. You'd be the guy to stay in the car. I told your wife that - to her face. And now I'm breaking that promise. And I can't even be sorry about it."

"You're not breaking it. I am - because Beckett is my partner too, no matter the CIA. Jenny wouldn't want me if it was any other way."

Castle glanced over at the man and nodded tightly, trekking deeper into the woods. The trees seemed to reach for them, impede their progress, the roots catching at their feet. Ryan called out soft instructions as he stared down at the GPS on his tablet, indicating with a word when they needed to change direction.

"Almost," Ry said. "Nearly. Head west-southwest. Your eight o'clock."

Castles stalked between the trees, weapons at the ready, and then he heard the explosive chatter of gunfire.

Ignoring all stealth, they broke out into a run, Ryan shouting directions that Castle no longer even needed. He traced the sound of weapons fire through the trees and came up behind two men firing towards a clearing as they moved for their vehicles.

SUVs. Like the ones that had taken Kate.

Castle aimed as he raced forward, shot one man in the back of the head, the other between the shoulders blades as he moved to get into the car. A wheel man popped open his door as Castle came running; the driver aimed, but Castle smashed his fisted weapon into the man's face and felt the solid crunch of a broken nose being shoved back into his brain. The driver dropped.

More were moving through the clearing and heading towards a line of trees. Castle raced forward, felt a bullet skim the air at his side, the burn of split skin, but Ryan was already taking the shooter out. Castle focused instead on the treeline where the men had been aiming, his gun braced before him in quick firing position, and he saw finally the black trench coat, the shine of gel in his hair, the senator.

He moved to shoot but at that moment, Bracken collapsed, a heap of bones, a puppet with strings cut. Just beyond him, Castle saw his wife and the weapon in her hand.

And then he saw his wife fall, pitching towards a tree.

"_Kate!"_

A man rose up between them, the side of his face blasted away, his body leaking blood, and Castle put two rounds in his chest and barreled right through him, knocking him back to the ground. He raced towards Beckett, caught the side of her neck as she slumped from the tree.

He fell with her, skidding on leaves and damp earth, her head cradled in the crook of his arm, his body hunched over hers. A bullet nicked the tree over his head and he huddled close, palming the side of her face and bringing his cheek down to her mouth to feel for breath.

And she was. She was breathing. "Kate," he croaked, running his fingers through the blood on the side of her face, crusted in her lashes. He heard the single shots of gunfire. "Kate."

She didn't open her eyes and finally there was silence and wind in the trees, there were groans and men dying.

He cautiously lifted his head. "Ryan!"

"We're clear!"

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Ryan, bloodied and sweating in the middle of a ring of dead men, double fisting two weapons. Castle had no idea where he'd gotten the second.

And then Esposito was coming down through the trees from an opposite path he and Ryan had taken, Mitchell at his heels. Esposito was furious. "You are fucking lucky I am a trained sniper. You are so damn lucky. You should be dead," he roared.

Mitchell yanked Espo back, but Castle had already turned to Kate, ignoring all of them. "Kate, Kate, come on. Come on, baby."

He skimmed his hands along her torso, feeling for gunshot wounds, and her body jerked in reaction, her eyes slamming open on a breath of a scream.

"Kate, Kate, it's me. It's me. Are you shot?"

She rattled out a breath that made her face twist, but she raised her hand to grip his neck. "Get me - up."

He obeyed, his heart tripping, stood up with her. She swayed and clutched at him tighter, her eyes closing. "I need - need an ambulance."

Oh, fuck. Oh, God. "Ryan-"

"On it's way, on it's way," he was already saying. Castle slid his arm around her waist and she cried out, jerking away from him, collapsing in on herself. He caught her again and she stiffened, pain masking her features.

"Oh, God," she cried. "Please. Please."

His heart was breaking. "I got you, Kate. I got you. Let me take you up to the access road. Ambulance is coming. The paramedics are coming - did you get shot? What happened, Kate?"

She let him draw close and this time her arm snaked around his neck, her face pressed against him. "Kicked in the ribs," she gasped out. "Broken, they're broken but-"

"Shit, holding you too tight," he muttered, easing his grip around her. She swayed as he walked her up out of the trees. "This okay?"

She moaned something but she pressed closer, her arm strangling him, and then he heard her, what she was saying.

"The baby, the baby, oh God, the baby, Castle-"

* * *

Castle wrapped his hands around her palm, dwarfing it, and brought her wrist to his mouth, settled there. She could feel the ambulance roaring down the country road, feel it in every bone.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she gasped. The paramedic probed her abdomen and she growled, her eyes darting to his in warning. "That fucking hurt."

He ignored her, and Castle pressed her hand to his chest. "I thought I'd lost you. I thought that was it. God, I thought I was too late."

"I'm sorry," she choked out. "I tried to - I didn't have any choice. I tried to keep from-"

"Shut up, Kate. Shut up, just - stop talking. You're making it worse." He lowered his forehead to the back of her hand, both of them rocking as the ambulance swayed taking a corner. He breathed out something across her skin that sounded to her like relief, and the paramedic pushed his fingers into the bruises on her ribs again.

"Fuck," she yelped. "What the hell?"

"I'm checking for internal bleeding. Stay still."

She pressed her lips together and felt the tears slip out of her eyes, roll back to her ears. Castle suddenly filled her sight and she gave him a watery smile, but it twisted and fell away.

"You're going to be okay," he said. "You're going to be fine."

She really couldn't care less. She really couldn't-

"Hey," he croaked. "Shit, don't cry. Beckett. Come on. You're gonna completely un-man me here."

She gasped out a laugh, choked on the tears that spilled out and stopped. She raised her hand to his neck, the blood on his skin, couldn't find words for what they both weren't saying.

"You're going to be fine," he said again. "You're alive. You hear me? It's all going to be okay, no matter what-"

She pressed her fingers to his mouth to stop him, closed her eyes. He stopped talking and leaned down into her, his forehead touching hers, their breaths sharp and fast and scared.

She was scared. She didn't know what happened if-

She wouldn't even think it.

* * *

The CIA cleared the whole wing.

Castle sat at the head of the gurney and pressed her hand to his chest as the trauma doctor they'd kidnapped from the Emergency Department did his assessment. Dr Rockney slapped the chest film up to the lighted board and traced his finger along the line of her ribs.

The ultrasound technician smeared gel across her ribs. "We don't usually do this, but sometimes we can get a clearer picture."

Dr Rockney turned back to them and Castle felt Kate's hand squeeze in his. He scooted the stool closer to the head of the bed and laced their fingers together, cradling her arm against his chest.

"I don't see broken ribs. The ultrasound may be unnecessary."

The technician adjusted the monitor and then pressed the round wand to Kate's ribs; she grunted and he held her hand tighter, his eyes on hers.

It took thirteen minutes for the doctor and the technician to be satisfied, the picture not at all clear to Castle. He watched Kate's face as she took it, the pain flickering in and out across her eyes, and he pressed his lips to her knuckles.

His side flared with a dull pain, and he realized he was bleeding.

"Well, what I can tell you is that there are no broken ribs. Your x-rays looked good too, no cracks, so I'm going to say bruised. Which can hurt like hell too. No internal bleeding. And... here's the little guy."

Here's what?

Castle jerked his attention to the monitor, staring at the jumble of grey that Dr Rockney was tapping with two fingers.

"All you can see at three weeks is if it's in the right place. Which it is. You'll need to make an appointment with your OB at four weeks and check back, of course. But it's still there."

"Oh," Kate breathed. "God."

He stared at the screen.

The doctor was talking. "Pay attention to your body. If you start spotting, call your OB. But let me reassure you, this guy is so small right now, barely the size of a seed, that he's pretty well cushioned. Kicks to the stomach do less damage to internal organs than you'd think. Of course, this is all hush-hush, top secret stuff, or so I'm told, but I'd suggest you avoid encounters like this in the future."

No shit.

Dr Rockney patted Kate's other hand and peeled off his gloves, disposed of them in the biohazard bin. Castle knew Esposito was waiting right outside the door to debrief the doctor and seize the medical chart, so he turned back to Kate.

The technician had cleaned her off and was shutting down the machine.

"Wait," he husked. "Is there - can you print that?"

Kate sucked in a breath and let it out with a little grunt; he helped her sit up as they both looked at the technician.

"I... not from here. But I'll freeze this image on my screen. Do either of you have a phone?"

Fuck. Kate looked blankly at him. He scrambled to try to remember. "Ryan has his?"

"Please," she murmured.

He left the room and ran into Mitchell outside, took comfort in the fact that their friends were looking out for them. Had their backs. Because Castle's brain had short-circuited; he was done. "Do you have your phone?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I need it."

Mitchell handed it over and Castle hustled back inside the room; a nurse had come inside and was taping Kate's ribs even though Kate was growling at her that _tape won't help_. She was right, but he went to the technician with Mitch's phone.

She swung the monitor towards him and his throat closed up. He had no idea which part was what. "Where?"

She pointed and he raised the phone, navigated quickly to the camera app. He took a shaky one that came out blurry, tried again. The technician gave him an indulgent smile and he forwarded the photos to his off-book email, the dark one he'd set up for them in case they needed to communicate and were shut out of CIA resources.

Then he deleted the photos and slid Mitchell's phone into his pocket; he'd wipe the memory and the card, give Mitchell a new phone.

"Castle."

He glanced up and saw Kate perched on the edge of the bed, the nurse dabbing iodine over the cut on Kate's eyebrow. He came closer and she pried her fingers off the gurney, reached out for him.

He took her hand and squeezed, the words caught in his throat. The nurse finished and sealed it with a butterfly bandage, and then both the nurse and the technician left the room.

Castle came softly into Kate and cupped her face in his hands, felt it spilling out of him.

She chewed on her lip and lifted her eyes to his. "Hey, so tonight," she started, her voice dry and cracking. "Tonight I thought I would take you out to dinner. I had - um - I had something I wanted to tell you."

He choked on it, his laughter and the fresh relief, touched his mouth to hers in a kiss he hoped wouldn't drown them.

"Okay," he murmured. "Just no spaghetti."

"Darn," she sighed. "I wanted Italian."

"Pizza. Alfredo. That's fair game." He kissed her cheekbone, drifted to her temple to taste the drying tears. "Tell me tonight, then."

She skimmed her fingers along his arms, came to his sides, probably the farthest she could go without wincing. "We could-" She stopped abruptly and he felt it then, again, the flare in his side. "You're bleeding."

"I might have been shot," he said. "But not much."

She sucked in a breath and he kissed her, pushed his tongue into her mouth and - for just a moment - _rejoiced_. And then he let go of her and went to find that doctor again.

It might need more than a butterfly bandage.

* * *

Kate held herself stiffly at his side while Dr Rockney stitched him up. She appreciated the fact that Rockney had probed the bullet wound for a good long while, making sure it was clean, no fragments, no debris, really making Castle feel it. Maybe then he'd pay attention to himself for once.

Castle laid on his uninjured side with his hand stroking back and forth across the top of her thigh, over and over, his eyes closed as the stitches went in.

Her ribs hurt so much she could barely move; the best she could do was stand close, not falter, not step away, just be the thing he touched.

Esposito came into the room and gave her a quick head-nod; she slid her eyes to Rockney and Espo got the message, stayed silent. He came beside her and thumped her shoulder with his finger.

"How're the ribs?"

"Hurt," she admitted. "But only bruised."

"And the rest?"

"Where it's supposed to be," she answered.

Esposito nodded again; he seemed just as uncomfortable speaking about it as she was just standing there trying to breathe.

Dr Rockney lifted his head. "All done. I suppose you'll confiscate this chart too?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you," Espo said with a wide grin. He took the chart and Rockeny sighed, pulling off the sterile gloves and gathering everything up for the trash.

When he had left, Castle eyed Esposito. "Sit rep."

"William Bracken is dead. Eddie Rourke is dead. Three of Eddie's guys are dead, but one is on a respirator. He's already given a signed affidavit clearing Beckett of wrongdoing, saying explicitly that it was self-defense, that she'd been kidnapped off the street and taken to the woods behind the Animal Hospital to be tortured for information and then killed."

"Oh, fuck," Castle groaned, sitting up and moving for his shirt. "That - You have all the sensitivity of a morgue attendant."

"Hey now, don't let Lanie hear you say that," Espo shot back.

"Hey now, don't let Lanie hear you compare her to a mere _attendant_," Beckett injected.

Espo grinned at her; she grinned back, surprised to find the smile there.

"I'm just watching your backs," Espo said. "You can thank me later. I accept all forms of major credit card and badass CIA weapons' caches."

"Thanks, Javi," she said quietly. "And the rest of it? That goes nowhere."

"I know," he said, a quick glance of his eyes down to her stomach and back up again. "We're handling it - just us. Me, Ryan, Mitchell. We got it covered. Ryan is with the senator's body and McCord is down there, overseeing evidence collection. I think we can trust her on that, but she doesn't know either of you guys are up here."

"Good," she breathed carefully. Her ribs ached. Her head was killing her. "I do trust her with that. What about what happened on the street? What about - about Mal? Malone."

"He's dead," Castle said quietly. "I got to him before he - but he's dead, Kate."

She chewed the inside of her lip and nodded quickly.

Esposito filled in the gaps. "We've already collected statements from witnesses at the scene. Police cars blocked the intersections and diverted foot traffic; two SUVs came up on the sidewalk after you and Malone. We finally got footage - a guy in the apartment across the street took it with his cell phone. It's shitty quality but it's damning. Malone going down, you getting grabbed."

"You guys are covering all the angles," Castle said, sounding impressed. Kate watched him a moment longer - just to be sure that it was nothing more than stitches and a really awful day.

A really good day? She had an email picture of her baby right where it was supposed to be and they were alive.

She was hesitant to feel too much of that, to let it be hopeful, hesitant to start. "I need to see him."

"Malone?" Esposito said.

Castle watched her, sighing. "Bracken."

She nodded.

"I'll go down with you."

"Yes," she murmured. "But first. Can I get some scrubs? I really want to get out of these clothes."

Castle smiled, put his feet on the floor. "I'm always for that, getting you out of your clothes."

Espo groaned. "Not while I'm in the room."


	7. Chapter 7

**Close Encounters 16**

* * *

McCord startled when she saw Beckett just outside the morgue room doors. "You're lucky to be alive."

Kate nodded towards the freezer storage behind her. "But he's not?"

"Alive? No. You need to see it for yourself?"

"Yes." She held herself away; even Castle's touch along her elbow made pain tremble through her. No painkillers either; oh, joy.

McCord crossed her arms for a moment and then pointedly looked the other way.

Castle opened the morgue room door and she followed him inside. It was cold, bitingly cold, but he was moving quickly for her sake. He checked the clipboard and found the assigned number, moved to the correct drawer and unlatched it.

Beckett walked down the middle of the room and positioned herself in front of the drawer. Number 47. Castle opened it up and pulled the metal drawer out. It slid to a clanging stop right in front of her and she stared down into William Bracken's dead, slack face.

Castle was silent.

Beckett had cleaned up in the bathroom on the wing the CIA had shut down to protect their identities. The mirror had given back a reflection that was her and not her at the same time. Blood caked in the corner of her eye and smeared down the side of her face, only hastily cleaned by the nurse and then butterfly bandaged with yellow streaks of iodine. Splatter and grey matter across her neck.

She'd washed the blood and the iodine from her skin, and then she'd called for Castle. He had come into the bathroom and slowly peeled her shirt off, trailing his fingers over the bruises, barely touching. His lips had brushed her temple just over the bandage, and then he'd done his best to get the scrub top over her head without totally killing her.

The pants had been easier.

Now she stood before morgue drawer number forty-seven, clean but not clean, stained but without reproach.

"I killed him," she said into the frozen quiet.

"Yeah. You did."

"He had my mother stabbed and left in an alley. Like trash," she whispered.

Tears slipped down her cheeks and ran to her chin. Castle lifted his hand and caught one, skimmed his thumb at her jaw for the rest. "He doesn't get these," Castle said.

She blinked fast, hard; her husband cupped her chin and kept them all. She strained her eyes until she could stop the rest, and she let out a slow, painful breath.

"He's dead."

"Yeah."

"I have to - tell my father."

"Yeah, love. We do."

She opened her eyes and turned her head to him, he leaned in over the drawer and softly kissed the corner of her eye where it was wet.

"We have a few things to tell him."

* * *

It was while they were leaving the hospital that she saw it. The gift shop apparently had a satellite location at the back entrance where the CIA was hustling them out, but Kate made him stop and she went in alone.

She moved carefully, kept herself in check, and she had to call the woman at the register to help her with it. And then once they got it to the register, she had to call for Ryan to come pay for it.

She had nothing on her; she'd forgotten that.

Ryan gave her a weird glance, but she shook her head. "Shut up. Don't judge."

"No, no, you're right. Good thing you called for me. I'm the only one here who'd understand."

She smiled at him, felt it now beginning to take shape, weight, hold substance for her.

This was real.

This was happening.

It was early yet, but she was finding hope fluttering around inside her.

* * *

Castle kept in touch with the boys, of course, but he took his wife home.

She sat woodenly in the passenger seat of the Land Rover, taking shallow breaths and staring out the window. She had a white plastic bag in her hand from the hospital gift shop and she wouldn't let him see inside. He didn't know what to say, where to start.

She started it for him, though not how he'd have thought. "Can we order pizza? I couldn't sit up all night at a restaurant."

He choked on his surprise. "A restaurant? Kate."

"I told you I wanted to take you out."

"I thought you were being cute."

"Cute?" she laughed, then caught her breath with a groan. "Oh, don't make me laugh. I can't."

"Then stop saying ridiculous things. We're not going anywhere. For a while."

And then the truth of that statement hit them both, stunned them silent. Life was going to be very different.

"So, pizza," he tried tentatively.

"Yeah," she sighed. "Don't know how much I can eat."

"Still nauseous?"

"Hmm. Tired."

Was that an answer? "I'm supposed to wake you every two hours because of the concussion."

"Yeah," she sighed. "That's gonna suck."

He felt his lips twist into a smile. "I'll try to make it quick." His guts clenched and he choked the steering wheel to siphon off some of his paranoia. The car in the rearview mirror - Mitchell was following them home, that was all.

"I want a bath while you get pizza."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said sharply.

She stared at him.

"Oh, right." He usually chose a random place and went to pick it up; they could never do delivery. "We'll stop on our way home. Before we get to the Tunnel," he said, ducking his head. "Sorry. I'm..."

"If you drag the mattress and box springs down there, I'll sleep in the panic room."

"You will?" he croaked. His throat closed up and his fists eased on the wheel. He thought, for one awful second, that he was going to cry. And then it dissolved enough so that he could swallow it down. "Thanks."

"As long as I get a bath and pizza," she sighed.

"I can do that. I'm getting off the interstate right now." He snagged Mitchell's phone from where he'd dumped it in the cup holder, called Espo who was riding shotgun with Mitch behind them. "I'll let the guys know."

It was a little unnecessary; Bracken was dead. The threat should be over.

But Black was still out there, and Castle couldn't help thinking that his father had somehow orchestrated the whole thing.

* * *

He woke her opening the car door; she blinked and sat up too quickly, grit her teeth through the flash of pain. She'd meant to pop another couple of tylenol when he stopped for pizza, but apparently she'd fallen asleep. Now he was tucking two boxes into the back of their vehicle and studying her.

"Tylenol hasn't kicked in?"

"No, fell asleep first," she said shortly. "That smells really good."

"You're hungry?" he asked, a surprise in the late afternoon light.

That it was still afternoon surprised her. That it had stopped raining the closer they got to the city did not. She still debated driving straight through to her father's and telling him about Bracken. But nothing else yet, too soon. Too soon.

Too fragile, all of it. How easily they could have lost...

"Kate?"

She came back to the car with a struggle, looked over at him.

"What day is it?" he asked. He was in the driver's seat and cranking open the child-proof cap on the Tylenol. She took it from him and swallowed the pills down with a swig from the half-empty bottle of water.

"Monday," she said promptly. "Thinking about Dad. I'm still here."

"Yeah," he said roughly. Still here. Yeah.

"And yes - I didn't realize I was hungry. I'm pretty sure I threw up my lunch on the senator's shoes."

"Oh, shit," Castle said, and there was laughter under the curse. It made her smile back, pleased with herself for being able to find it.

He pulled back onto the interstate and they resumed their drive home, Mtich and Javi in the black Dodge Charger behind them. She curled her fingers around the plastic bag from the hospital gift shop.

* * *

She woke in the dark to the touch of his fingers against the side of her face, her car door open and his frame filling her vision. "Kate. What day is it?"

"Monday," she answered. "You better not have eaten my pizza."

His smile was crooked as he stepped back; she got out of the car alone, swayed on her feet before catching her balance. Her head pulsed but the tylenol had at least dulled the sharp blade.

"Hey, we're not in the parking garage," she said, moving slowly after him. "Castle. Where'd you park?"

"Different garage. Closer. A guy I know lives in the top floor of this apartment complex. I know the code and I know which space is his. It's three buildings over from our house."

If she stopped moving, it would hurt too much to get started again, but she reached out and snagged the sleeve of the scrub top he'd changed into. He took her fingers and she didn't even need to say it. He was considerate when it counted most.

He carried the pizza box in a cloth grocery bag, which she knew was so that he could maneuver quickly should something happen. But he walked at her pace and he didn't comment; they traveled half the block to their own home and Castle unlocked the door.

"I sent a team in ahead of us. We recovered your phone at the scene, but the screen was cracked, so you'll get a new one. And mine - I lost track of it somewhere. So we've got the security app on Mitchell's; I had to reprogram the locks."

"That's fine," she murmured, stepping over the threshold and into her home.

Sasha was at the door to greet them, her tongue coming out to lick at Kate's fingers. She whined and nudged Castle's hand as if to prompt him, and he petted the dog too, both of them hunched over Sasha's tail-wagging pleasure at having them back.

With the door shut behind them and the smell of pizza filling the air, Kate finally let it drop from her. The pretense or the need to stand up, whatever it was that had kept her going. Everything hurt, every inch of her, and she was done.

"Castle."

He sighed and laid the pizza box on the entry table, wrapped his arm around her neck and carefully brought her close.

She stood stiffly, barely daring to move, and just tried to keep breathing.

His voice was rough when he spoke. "I made a promise to myself that when I got you home again, I wouldn't let a second go to waste."

"To waste?"

"Before this," he gruffed. And then he closed his mouth over hers and devoured her, took everything as if he'd been afraid he'd never have it again. She ached - for him, for herself, for her ribs - but she gripped his shirt and hung on, pushing back as much as she could, the intensity drowning her.

After a long time, his forehead rolled to hers, his breathing harsh, and then he dragged a line of kisses back along her jaw, before his lips came to her ear. "What day is it?"

She laughed, groaned when it ached, buried her forehead against his neck. "Monday, you bully. Stop making me laugh."

He had to be smiling; she could feel him smiling. And she was okay again.

She slid her hand slowly to his side and pressed into his ribs, the best hug she could manage. "Call your mother," she said. "We were supposed to have dinner with her tomorrow, but we're not going to make it. I'm going to get a bath."

"You're kind of ruthless. What punishment you dole out just for making you laugh."

Kate smiled and let him feel it against his neck before she eased away. "Go." She carried the plastic bag from the gift shop upstairs with her, every step a work of pain.

* * *

Castle came into the bathroom to find she'd fallen asleep in the tub. There was a sharp spike of panic, but it fizzled out fast. Kate fell asleep in the tub pretty much every time she took a bath. Nothing new.

"Kate."

She roused and opened her eyes, smiled at him. "It's Monday."

He sank to his knees beside the tub. "Yeah. I called my mother. She says feel better. I gave her a very shortened version."

"Thanks." Her fingers came up from the water, dripping, and she combed them through his hair, behind his ear, easy gestures. "I can't help thinking about what happened."

He nodded. "Me too."

"I'm not going to mind sleeping in the panic room."

He gave her a lopsided smile, settled down to lay his cheek against the porcelain. Her palm rested over his cheek, fingers stroking slowly. He closed his eyes.

"I hurt, but I'm going to be fine. It could have been very bad. But it's not. And I don't want to think about it tonight. I want to... be happy."

He opened his eyes and propped his chin on the bathtub, watched her.

She smiled and her fingers trailed out of his hair. "Get the bag from the gift shop, Castle."

The corner of his lips turned up. "Where is it?"

"Right there. On the counter."

He turned and stood, headed for the bathroom sink. He picked up the bag and resisted the temptation of looking inside. He came back to her and stood over the tub, waiting.

"Don't look yet. Just dump it out in the water."

"What?"

"Close your eyes. Do it."

He took a long look of her - those elegant limbs, the bruises mottling her skin, the beautiful shine in her eyes. And then he did as she asked, closed his eyes, and the world went dark. He let the bag tip and its contents spill; he heard the plopping splash of three things hitting the water.

She was laughing. "Okay, open."

He opened his eyes and glanced down, laughed. "You did not just buy a hippo."

"I did," she said, holding back her laugh with her arm wrapped around her torso. "They're rubber duckies. Well, except they're not ducks. A hippo, and look. An elephant. And a I found a wolf too. I made her open two different packages for them. Safari and woodland creatures. Aren't they perfect?"

A wolf rubber ducky. A bath toy. He sank down to his knees beside the tub and reached out a finger, made the hippo bobble.

"You said three weeks?" he murmured, watching the smiling little hippo float in the bath.

"Three weeks. Dr Boyd called me right before my meeting with McCord. I almost called you, but I wanted to see your face."

He tilted his head and studied her; she was studying him back. "Three weeks puts us... on the river." He dipped the hippo under water and held it there, then let it come springing back up.

"Yeah."

He heard the tremor in her voice and looked up; she was smiling though. He reached through the water to the arm she'd wrapped around her ribs to brace herself. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and slowly eased her arm away.

She let herself be opened up to him and he stroked his fingertips over her stomach.

"Kate." He closed his eyes, opened them again in a rush because he didn't want to miss it. Any of it. "Kate, I..."

Her hand came over his under the water, their fingers tangling together. So tenuous, this life. Any of it.

"I love you," she said.

He squeezed her fingers and pressed his other hand to his face.

She rocked forward, water sloshing around them both, her arms wrapping around his shoulders and head. "Don't, don't," she murmured. "Don't, Rick."

"I'm not, I'm not," he choked out, curling his fingers at her neck and hanging on. "I just - I love you. I love you and I don't know-"

"Don't," she insisted. "Hush, sweetheart. Just don't."

He cradled her face and kissed her lashes, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "I won't," he promised. "Am I hurting you?"

"Never."

* * *

They laid head to toe, Kate at the foot with ice packs on her ribs and hip, her hair drying over the end of the bed, and Castle at the head, his arm wrapped around her feet to keep her toes warm.

The pizza box was on the floor of their bedroom and Sasha came sniffing at the crusts Beckett had left. Castle snapped his fingers at the dog and Sasha put her muzzle on the mattress, licked his hand.

"If she jumps up here with us-" Kate warned. The vibrations would kill her.

"I'll pick her up," he promised, leaning over the side. She watched as he scooped Sasha up and settled her along Kate's knees, gentle and easy, keeping the bed from bouncing. "How're the ribs?"

"Getting cold," she said.

Castle leaned forward, touched the ice pack wrapped around her hip. "It's melted. Let me switch it out."

"Fifteen minutes on, five off," she complained. "You're gonna give me frostbite."

But Castle was already taking the gel packs from her hip and standing up from the bed, heading towards the hallway. She sighed and adjusted the pillow at her side, wincing as the movement rippled through her torso. If it had just been her hip, maybe it wouldn't be this bad. But her ribs - it affected every single thing she did.

Sasha lifted her head as Kate tried to find a comfortable position, watching her intently.

"I'm okay," she told the dog, scratching Sasha between the ears. "You and Castle. A little overprotective. But that's okay. Love you both."

Sasha belly-crawled up the bed towards Kate's chest, tried to lay her head on Kate's ribs.

"Oh, oh, sorry. Can't," Kate gasped, catching the dog. "I'm sorry. Sorry, puppy." She stroked Sasha's muzzle and ears, the silky fur at her neck even as she moved the dog away. "Lay right here beside me. Right here's good."

Sasha cuddled up under Kate's armpit, warming her skin where the ice had made it numb. Kate stroked her fur, over and over, let her eyes close as she focused on breathing shallowly enough not to stretch her ribs. The touch of the dog at her side was comforting, and Sasha kept licking her arm as if so grateful for the petting.

She must have fallen asleep because Castle was standing over her when she opened her eyes. She felt his fingers in her hair, combing through the curling tangles, the waterfall off the end of the bed. He massaged her scalp with his fingertips, hitting a pressure point that made her breath slip out.

His eyebrows looked crooked upside down and his smile was both silly and sad at the same time. "Hey," she said finally.

He scratched the top of her head, winked at her. "Day?"

"Monday. Oh, wait. Depends. What time is it?"

"Still Monday," he rumbled, a laugh somewhere in there. He was taking this a whole lot better than she'd expected, all things considering. "I've got fresh ice. You weren't asleep _that _long - it's only been a little over an hour, love."

His voice was low and Kate glanced down, saw Sasha was asleep against her. "An hour?" She sighed and patted Sasha's leg, stroked over her fur. "Time to shift, puppy. The cold has arrived."

"You know - she might like it," Castle said, kneeling down at the foot of the bed. He kissed her forehead and reached over her to wrap the ice pack at her hip first. He was right. Sasha cozied up to the ice pack as well, making Kate laugh pathetically, stuttering with it as her ribs pulled.

"Oh," she groaned. "That hurts. Stop, stop, stop."

"Not my fault you're so easily amused," he said, his grin a little devilish. "Now for this one. Stop squirming."

She sighed at him, but the heat of the bruise at her hip had been pulsing and she hadn't even realized. The cold felt good, though she was like a popsicle.

Castle smoothed the wrinkles out of her t-shirt, the heavy warmth of his hand making her smile. The soft black cotton between her skin and the ice kept the cold from burning, but it still pushed on the bruises. He was careful, meticulous with it, his brow furrowing as he made sure it stayed in place.

"It's not a bomb," she said, lifting her arm from the dog to stroke between Castle's eyebrows, erase the lines of concentration. "It won't go off in your face."

"Never know," he said wryly, giving her a quick once-over so she caught his meaning.

"You mean me," she murmured. "Making jokes at your wife's expense. I see how it is."

"Sweetheart, if I didn't laugh, I'd cry."

It was a little too real, but she pressed her thumb into that spot between his eyes. "Crawl in with me."

"Like the dog?" he rumbled, a laugh in his voice that made her breathe a little easier. He was okay; he was still okay.

"Well, if you're more careful than the dog, I'll let you actually lay on me."

Castle gruffed something unintelligible that she took to mean _not on your life_, but he did get back in bed with her, head to toe again. It was warm enough without the covers, but he'd dragged the blankets from the linen closet and made a nest for her, trying to keep her braced and off the worst of the bruises. He dug into the blankets now, his toes niggling at her arm.

She trapped his foot there, ignoring the short jab of pain in her ribs as she did. Castle gave her a knowing look but he didn't comment, let her keep his foot. His hand came to the top of her thigh and rubbed slowly, in the same way she was rubbing at Sasha's back.

He propped his head up on his pillow and crossed his feet at his ankles, waving his toes at her. Pizza was gone, the bath had been just what she needed, and she was wrapped in ice. Resting, like he'd asked of her.

And he'd been on his phone a lot of the afternoon, emailing and messaging the boys, keeping things under control.

She had just killed a United States Senator. Shit.

"You gonna debrief me?" she murmured. "I know I need to give my statement. Probably have to be held for questioning?"

"Among other things," he sighed. "But not tonight."

She shifted carefully onto her side, bruised hip be damned, laid her cheek against his ankles so she could watch him. Castle sat forward and rearranged the ice on her ribs where it had shifted, and then his hand lowered, skimmed her abs. His fingers traced her belly button and even though he wasn't smiling, she saw it there, so close to the surface.

Kate reached down and closed her hand around his wrist, holding on to him as he took his moment. A baby. They were having a baby.

Like he could hear her thoughts, his eyes lifted to hers and the smile cracked through, just for her. "Hey. I printed the ultrasound."

"Yeah? Where is it?"

"On our fridge."

She caught her breath to keep from laughing, her smile widening and splitting. "On the fridge." Just the beginning; it was just the beginning of this for them. There'd be newborn photos and first day home, there'd be schedules for preschool and cute crayon drawings and probably little smudges of fingerprints at knee level.

"I can see you thinking about it," he said. His palm stretched across her stomach, fingers stroking, thoroughly distracting. "I'm thinking about it too."

"Tell me," she said immediately, watching the way his smile darkened his eyes. "I like your stories better than mine."

He laughed, a rich thing, and she was grateful for how easy it was for him, how he was able to do this with her - forget the horror of the day and dwell instead on their news, on _them_.

"My story? Well, it's kind of R-rated."

She laughed, groaning when it echoed in her ribs, tightening her grip on his wrist. He caught the ice pack when it started to slip, repositioned it.

"R-rated," she repeated. "Well, I _really_ like those stories."

"Not tonight, you don't," he warned. His voice was soft though, amused, and she gave a lopsided shrug, short to keep from pulling her ribs.

"Not tonight," she admitted. "But soon. Little pain never hurt anybody."

He groaned and tilted his head back, but he was laughing. "Yeah, you know... never mind. I'm not touching that. Keep the ice packs on for another 48 hours, and then..."

"And then you'll touch it?" she smirked.

He laughed again, harder this time, his mirth so vibrant she could practically feel it wrap around her, holding her up. He leaned in, bracing himself with his hands on either side of her head, and he lowered a kiss to her lips, gradually more aggressive, more insistent, until she realized how much he was holding back, keeping a tight control over everything he wanted to do to her.

He _wanted_ her. Badly.

When he lifted his head, his eyes were dilated, a darkness that sparked and burned.

Suddenly, she didn't feel any of it, not a thing, no bruised ribs, no ache in her hip, not the pound of her heartbeat in her head, nothing. It was just the heat of his body radiating into hers, the lust crawling under her skin, the current that pulled them closer.

"Lay down with me," she murmured. "I wanna celebrate as best we can."

Castle's fingers spread and touched her jaw, stroking, and then he lowered his body alongside hers.

The pain surfaced, but so did the want. She dipped her fingers under his shirt and touched his skin, and Castle kissed her.

It felt so good, to touch, to have her lips raw and tingling with the sensation of his kiss, to run her hands up and down the warm skin at his back, to tuck her fingers into the waistband of his pants and dip close to the heat, so close.

After the initial rush of his mouth over hers, she realized his hand was between them at her stomach, purposeful and gentle, little strokes, over and over, and it struck her again what they'd done.

He caressed her, and she felt the answering tug, deep, so deep.

And she felt how much, how desperately much she loved him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Close Encounters 16**

* * *

Castle watched her shift awake on her own, not more than fifteen minutes later. He had the secure laptop perched on his knees; he'd meant to check in with work but instead he'd wandered off into google searches.

As she blinked with awareness, she seemed to forget what had happened because she curled up as if to stretch and instead gasped, stiffening.

"You okay?" He hesitated, concerned by the pain rippling behind her eyes.

"Shit. Ow. Ow, ow, ow."

"It's only eight o'clock," he said. "You had forty more minutes."

"I feel like one big bruise. Help me move? I can't lie down another second."

Castle put the laptop on the bedside table and leaned forward. "What do you need me to do?"

"Lift me up." She was already wrapping her hands around his biceps, so he slid an arm under her neck and half-carried her up to the head of the bed.

She'd squeezed her eyes closed at the jostling, but she cracked one eye open now, let out a breath. Castle eased her slowly back against the pillow he'd been using.

It took her a second, but she straightened her spine and pointed at the laptop. "What're you doing?"

He brought the other pillow up to her, brushed the hair back off her forehead where it had dried all crazy. She looked cute, if knocked around.

Knocked around - and knocked up.

"Holy shit," he whispered, staring down at her.

Her face cracked open on a grin and she worked a shoulder against the padded headboard. "Yeah, hits me like that too. We're responsible for a whole other _person_."

He sank down beside her, laid his hand over her knee and squeezed. "I was really starting to think the regimen - maybe it was making it difficult for us. That it had done something and it'd be - maybe it'd be impossible."

She laid her cheek against the pillow and gave him something like a wince. "Well, I'd wondered about it too, but three weeks means - well, that was right after you got the full dose, Rick. If anything, having it helped?"

He choked on a laugh, rubbed his hand down his face. "Super sperm."

"I didn't say it," she chuckled. He glanced over at her and she was holding her arms tightly against her sides, bracing herself against the laughter.

"Hey, let me go round up some more pillows. The blankets got kicked off onto the floor, too."

"Where's Sasha?" she said, even as he slid off the bed.

"In the baby's room."

They both froze, his words echoing.

"Wow. That's-" Kate made a noise. "The baby's room, huh?"

He turned back to see her; she had the look on her face that he figured was on his as well. Really close to panic.

"I - it kinda came out."

She stifled a laugh but groaned, tilting her head against the headboard. "Yeah, okay. Get me some pillows, Castle. I'm awake for a while."

He headed out the bedroom door and opened the linen closet, grabbed the extra pillow still in its plastic. Kate had bought it for his mother, insisting they have the guest room available in case Martha had to stay the night.

It'd never happened; he wasn't giving out his address to a woman he couldn't trust. But now. Now there'd be a grandchild for her to visit, and he just...

Shit, this was more than he could handle right now. Castle ripped open the plastic, stuffed the package into the trash in the bathroom. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and the day was telling on his face. A mixture of stress and bewilderment, blind fear and stupid joy.

He shook his head at himself and grabbed a pillow case, slid the pillow inside as he moved back into the bedroom. He really wanted to talk to her dad about this, have that conversation where he could admit how much _responsibility _this was and how he hadn't been prepared for that.

When he came inside the bedroom, she was straining her fingers for the laptop.

"Hey, stop that. I got it," he said, grabbing the computer and putting it on the mattress at her side.

"What were you working on?"

"Wasn't work," he admitted.

She gave him a quick look and opened the laptop even while he propped her up with the pillow. He kicked up a blanket with his foot, snagged it out of the air just to avoid her eyes.

"Castle."

He ignored her and tucked the blanket around her back, careful not to hit her ribs. She reached back and caught his arm. The laptop was open in front of her.

"Castle, what's this?"

He shifted on his feet and sank onto the mattress behind her, eased himself into position at her back. She let him arrange her body carefully against his chest and then he dragged the computer onto her propped up knees. He took a breath and pressed his nose to her jaw, swallowing.

"I couldn't help thinking," he said softly. "What if it's a girl?"

Her finger stroked along the side of the laptop. "You're looking at baby names. You know it's only three weeks, love. We can't..."

But she didn't finish it and he was never - he was never going to utter that fear aloud. Never admit it could be true. He didn't want to lose what they'd worked so hard to find.

"Girls' baby names. In case."

"In case it's not a James?" she murmured. Her head turned and her lips brushed his jaw. "This is sweet. You have any favorites?"

"Yeah," he said, feeling strangely shy. He reached around her and clicked on the title bar for the open document hidden behind the browser. "See? All those."

He watched her profile as she read the names, her lips lifted into a little smile. "I like these. Beautiful names."

"But?" he asked softly, tucking his chin on top of her shoulder.

"No but," she sighed. Her hand came up slowly and cupped the side of his face, her fingers scratching through his hair. "Though I can't help calling it James - just to myself."

He grinned, turned his head to kiss her jaw. "Me too. But I don't want her to think we weren't ready for her."

"If it's a girl," she said softly. "We could still call her James. Just make it sound like a last name; girls are given family names like that. Jameson or something. We can call her Jamie."

"Oh," he murmured, a smile lifting his lips. Jamie? "But then we can't use James if..."

Her fingers tightened and squeezed his ear. "If we have _another_?" She turned her head to glare at him. "Who said anything about two?"

He chuckled and darted in for a quick kiss. "We'll see."

"We will _not_ see. Two is not in the deal."

"Hmm, let's revisit this deal," he murmured lowered his mouth for another taste of hers.

She pressed her fingers to his jaw and pushed him away. "Slow down, super spy. Let's handle one first."

He laughed and cupped the side of her face, took his kiss from her anyway, sweet and rich, relishing the tug of her teeth and the way she leaned into it. After a moment, he could feel the stiffness in the way she held herself, so he stopped, cradled the back of her neck.

"How're the ribs?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "They hurt. Where's my ice? You're falling down on the job, Castle."

"Wow, how fast they turn on you." He untangled himself from her, being careful of her positioning, and then searched the foot of the bed for the ice packs. "Want me to bring Sasha back in here with us?"

"No, that's okay. She can - stay in the baby's room." Kate gave him a long look as she said it, her smile tilting her mouth. "Let her have it all to herself while she still can."

Castle leaned back in to kiss her; he just couldn't quite get enough of her. "Back in a second. Check out the other tabs on my computer."

* * *

Kate skimmed the article he'd left open on the browser, smiling. The next was similar, more stuff about how to prepare and what to buy, and a few consumer reports ratings on cribs and the accoutrements, but the last one made her laugh so hard she gasped and had to brace her ribs, groaning into the pillow.

"I got your ice - hey, what's wrong?"

"You made me laugh," she grunted, opening an eye. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move but it hurt not to move and she didn't know which way to go. Up, down.

"How'd I make you laugh?" He sat beside her on the bed and helped her shift onto the pillows. "I was downstairs in the kitchen."

"That Pregnant Kama Sutra website."

He lifted an eyebrow. "That is no laughing matter."

She groaned and slapped his shoulder, tried desperately to smother the urge to laugh. Her ribs were killing her. Shit, it hurt. It hurt, but that was funny, and _sexy_, and the idea of doing any of those pregnant was - oh, shit. Her ribs were going to break.

"Sorry, sorry, I'll stop," he promised, grinning at her. "Don't laugh, Beckett. You're making it worse. Let me ice you down. Come on, open up."

Castle pried her arms away from her torso and settled the ice packs along her ribs and hip even as she tried to stifle her amusement - and her arousal.

She caught his hand with hers, kept him from moving away. "I liked number thirty-five, in case you were wondering."

His face, oh, priceless. That had been worth it.

He cleared his throat and nodded. "I'll make a note of it. Any others?"

She hummed and rubbed her thumb along the inside of his wrist. "What about... all of them?"

He blanked. His mouth opened and she saw the arousal flare in his eyes. "All. Of them. Kate, there are a hundred. It's the Kama Sutra for-"

"We've got nine months. Should give us time to find a way to do each one twice."

Castle sank down on the mattress beside her, gave her a long, hard look. "Yeah, we gotta change the subject."

"Why?"

"Cause you're getting me hot and bothered and you're not going to be able to follow through."

Kate shifted forward, thinking maybe she could - but, ow, no. No. She could hardly breathe, let alone be seductive. "All right. Subject change. We need to find an OB - and we need to decide how many people are going to know about this."

Castle stiffened like she'd dumped cold water over his head. "I don't want anyone to know. Kate. This is going to be difficult right now; the timing is a little precarious. Someone in the Office leaked information to Bracken or the Westies about the investigation; they _knew _you'd be at the grand jury testimony. We have to keep this very quiet."

"I agree," she said, wrapping her arm around her torso to protect her ribs. And maybe the baby too, stupid as it was, as if her arms around her middle could protect the little seed-sized thing they'd created. "But Mitchell, Espo, Ryan - they were there for it today. They all know."

"We'll need their help to keep you - this - under wraps for as long as possible anyway. But anyone else?"

"No one," she said, felt her throat closing up. "No one else can know."

"Your dad-"

"Not-" She shook her head and closed her mouth, took a slow breath. "Not yet. I want to be sure it - that website you were reading said after the first trimester. We can tell him then."

_When we can be sure._

He nodded, but he didn't say it either. How tenuous it was. Three weeks. She'd nearly been killed today and it would have taken everything from them - and he hadn't even known. He'd only been coming after her like he usually did.

"After that," Castle agreed. "And I guess Martha will have to be told."

She noticed that although he said it reluctantly, he didn't _look_ that put out about it. She thought maybe some part of him, deep down, wanted to tell his mother, wanted to share it with her, his pride.

He looked so _proud_.

"We'll tell her and my dad at the same time," she said softly. "What about a doctor?"

"Yeah, let's look right now. Outside the CIA. I can't trust anyone in the service - I don't know who might be working for my father."

"Dr Boyd - he asked to see me too."

Castle went still; she stroked his forearm and waited him out. When he spoke, his voice was tight. "Boyd wants to see you?"

"I think it's a good idea," she told him. "He'll be able to monitor the baby, do a genetic profile on him - to be sure."

Castle rubbed the back of his neck. "The baby could inherit this stuff, you mean."

"Maybe. We don't know. But Boyd will be able to help us find answers." She leaned in slowly and pressed her mouth to his cheek. "It's going to be fine. You told me - _whatever happens._ Whatever happens, remember? We have to hold on to that."

He lifted his head, giving her a crooked smile. "Whatever happens, Kate." His fingers reached out and touched her hair, brushed it back over her ear. "Whatever happens, I love you."

* * *

At ten that night, she made him carry down the box springs and mattress to the panic room; she said she was too tired to stay up with him any longer. He set the alarm on his phone and placed it on the floor beside the mattress, and then he made up the sheets and blankets, her little nest so she wouldn't have to lie on her hip or ribs.

Sasha had come downstairs with them, roused by Castle's lugging the mattress down the steps, and she curled up beside Kate, her nose in the crook of Kate's arm. Castle watched them for a moment, and then sat down on the office chair that pulled up to the bank of security monitors.

"Do you want me to shut us in?" he murmured.

"No," she sighed. "Don't need it. You do - whatever."

Sleeping down here was more for him, and he knew it, but he couldn't find it in him to say _never mind, this is stupid, we'll sleep in our bedroom like normal people._ He wasn't normal, neither was she, and this was what he needed to calm the gut-twisting adrenaline that still dumped into his bloodstream every time he thought about how close it'd been today.

One afternoon, and his world might have ended.

He was going to have nightmares about seeing her collapse against that tree.

So no. He wasn't going to close them up in here while he was still awake, but when he went to bed for the night, he'd probably have to do that just to sleep at all.

He watched her from the chair, letting his mind drift and wander through channels both dark and bright. Bracken had been pointing a gun at her - he hoped that the crime scene people that the Secret Service had called in had been thorough, documenting everything as it had been. Pointing a gun at her, Bracken had crumpled, dead, and then Kate had fallen, but she'd been breathing - kicked but breathing - and what if-?

Was that a loss she could come back from? Castle shivered and pressed his palms into his eyes, tried to shake the sick feeling that welled up in him at the thought.

The darkness behind his eyelids gave him the memory of a dream: a little boy climbing through a window and helping his father escape. It was only the form of a boy with no real details, just that impression of young fingers untying a father's hands, the kid's joy at being able to help.

He didn't want the life of a spy for his son, but now that he was dwelling in the memory, Castle realized he'd been having the dream for decades.

It wasn't James - not at first. It was _Castle's_ dream, the dream of himself, wanting desperately to be good enough for his own father.

Castle dropped his hands and opened his eyes, ravenous for the sight of Kate, his wife, the woman who loved him, who thought he was everything.

She was asleep, and beautiful in her stillness, and her lashes painted shadows above her cheeks.

Whatever happened. He loved her. No matter what. She would never be made to feel she wasn't good enough.

Kate had panicked and run off to Tunisia to find Black and the regimen, but that was done. It was over. For the first time, Castle could let it go.

He let it go. She'd been hurt, she'd nearly died, but the pain and those close calls would happen no matter what. They happened in New York as easily as they happened in Tunisia, and he was done holding her love against her. Love had made her do some extreme things, but it was love of him.

She loved him. Like his dream of trying to impress his father, it had been Kate's hands that Castle had untied, crawling in to save her when she'd needed him, and she had loved him back. Kate loved him back.

Nothing else mattered.

* * *

He woke her at midnight to check the concussion; she answered in a mumble and swatted him away, dropped right back into sleep. After that, Castle knew he had two hours to get some work done; it was, after all, no longer their celebration night.

He eased off the bed and put a hand out to keep Sasha from following. "Stay there; stay with Kate."

The dog lowered her head and Castle took his phone from the beside the mattress, already calling Mitchell as he headed up the stairs. He closed the door to the basement and went through the house to the entry. He made it fast up the stairs and into his office, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

Mitchell answered on the fifth ring. "I'm glad you called. It's a mess. This is all fucked."

"I thought it was contained," Castle growled. He opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out his clean laptop, powered it up as he settled it on his desk. "Mitch. We have the affidavit from one of the guys. We-"

"No, we do. We do. That's solid. But this is a US Senator, Castle. We are - we are in deep. We covered our bases doing this so clean from the beginning, but McCord is telling me that there's a guy - a bureaucrat - making noise about this."

"It was a clean shoot," Castle hissed. "She was fucking kidnapped. How can some asshole think-"

"I know, I know. I'm just saying that we're getting flak for this. You just can't sweep this one under the rug. Have you seen the nightly news? It's gone national; everyone knows a senator was shot and killed."

The computer loaded and Castle set up the secure IP, opened an incognito browser that Malone had once created for him. Malone. "Bracken wasn't the only one shot and killed today," he rasped.

"I know, man. I know. But the senator is who they're focused on. His public reputation is impeccable - that's why we had to keep the investigation under wraps for so long."

"What's McCord saying about the grand jury now?"

"It's all falling apart. Plus we got Finn Rourke crying to the reporters that it was police brutality and a perversion of the Patriot Act and all this shit."

The grand jury hadn't even gotten to the most damning testimony today, Castle realized. They had all the evidence still at the Office, everything they'd collected for years now, but no one was ever going to hear that. Unless.

"No one knew," he mused thoughtfully. Castle typed his password into the CIA database, ran a search for the list of evidence they'd logged. It was quite a lot of material, hours of work that Malone had put into cataloguing everything.

"No one knew," Mitchell said. "No one wants to know, either. There's a senator on CNN right now, talking about how if the Secret Service can't guarantee protection to its elected officials - more shit like that."

And in the snow storm of media coverage, the truth was going to be buried if something wasn't done.

"Publish it," Castle said firmly. "Everything. We leak all of it, Mitchell."

"Are you serious? You're kidding me."

"Not kidding. This is my wife we're talking about. If the _truth_ doesn't get heard, then they're going to take her into custody, Mitch. That can't happen."

"That won't happen," Mitchell said. "None of us are going to let that happen."

"Because we're publishing every bit of evidence. Get me a list of reporters we might be able to approach. I want to narrow it down to three by tomorrow morning."

"I can't believe you're doing this. You're willing to jeopardize your lives for this?"

"We're going to have to be careful about it; I know. I'll be the contact person for the reporter-"

"No," Mitchell said. "You absolutely cannot be the one to do this. You come out to the media and you've got a target on your back. Every fucking mission you've done, every enemy you've collected along the way - they'll find you."

"What else am I supposed to do?" Castle stared at the massive list of names, dates, transcripts, pieces of physical equipment they'd recovered, fingerprints, database searches - everything here. "If we don't let the world know what kind of person Bracken was, Kate's going to get buried."

He'd have to go dark - deeply under - and keep this away from his home. Sleep at the Office to protect her; he might have to leave the country for a while, just in case.

He might miss his child's birth.

"I'll do it."

Castle went still, breathless, and then his heart started beating again. "No. Mitch, you've got just as many people out for your head as I do."

"Malone was my _friend_. My handler. He was the one who got me out of every tight spot when I was on a mission. Malone took every single one of my desperate calls. He had to extract me from some serious situations. He deserves to be remembered as more than just a damn footnote on a case brief. I'm doing it."

Castle went silent, guts churning with relief. But, oh, how it soured in his mouth. "Mitchell. This was my call. I'm the one who takes responsibility-"

"Not this time. Besides, Beckett's - you know. If you put your face out there, even if you went dark, completely off the grid, you leave her exposed."

Shit. There was no way in hell Beckett would let him do this alone either.

"I got this, Castle. This is what I get to do - to make up for a lot of things. A lot of things I did. Times I sided with Black over you."

"No. Mitchell."

"Plus - I have a friend. A reporter friend. She's... actually, she - uh - she reminds me of Kate. She's a little hard to handle but I keep trying to handle her."

Castle grunted on a laugh. On a hunch, he clicked on the user statistics in the command window, saw that someone else was accessing the evidence database right this moment.

"Mitchell. You're in the database, aren't you?"

"I am. Proof of what's going on here - I'll give it to her. She'll - well, she'll be pretty suspicious at first, but that's the kind of reporter we need. Plus, I am _so_ gonna get laid when I tell her I'm a spy. She thinks I'm just flaky."

Castle couldn't help but laugh, even though the mirth was dark and the despair was close to the surface. "Mitchell, you do this and I don't know that I can get you back. You'd be - if not completely retired - on a desk job for the rest of your life. I couldn't put you back in the field."

"I know that," Mitchell said. "But maybe it's time. For all of us, you know?"

The idea of _not _doing this made his mind blank. But Castle couldn't let it go. "Mitch. Give me a day to get this thing handled, to create a cover story for Beckett, for all of us, and then if it still looks bad for Kate-"

"I'm doing it. End of discussion. I'll come over tomorrow and we'll go over the cover story. I'll keep you in the loop, but this is what I have to do."

And then Mitchell hung up on him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Close Encounters 16**

* * *

She woke and it took a second, but she licked her lips and found the words. "Monday. No, wait. Tuesday now."

Castle didn't laugh, just brushed a kiss over her forehead. "Yeah. Four a.m. Go back to sleep."

But she was awake, the pulse of pain in her hip and her ribs making her shift restlessly in the bed. "I gotta get up." She couldn't move; everything had stiffened. "Castle, help. I can't - it hurts too long like this."

He was immediately at her side, leveraging her upright. "Come upstairs and we'll get you some more tylenol, fresh ice."

She murmured agreement and stood with his help, his arms strong as he lifted her right off the mattress. She stumbled when her abs caught and held her upright, but she moved for the door with Castle at her back. Everything _hurt_.

Castle looked grim.

Four a.m. was officially tomorrow; they were supposed to start talking tomorrow. "We doing this now?" she said. He was hovering a little as she moved up the stairs. She didn't mind because she wasn't sure she could catch herself if she started to fall. She needed more bruises like a hole in the head.

"Doing what now?" he murmured.

"Debrief," she said tightly, trying to control the agony. "I'll tell you what happened and you'll tell me what's happening."

She heard him sigh - felt him - the letting go of carrying a burden alone. This was what they did, who they were. She didn't want to abandon that just because Bracken was dead or because she was pregnant; the real world didn't suddenly become a rosier place just because one chapter had closed and another begun.

"It just never stops with us, does it?" he said.

She waited until they were firmly on the first floor before she looked at him, torquing her body uncomfortably to meet his eyes. But he wasn't sad, just serious.

Their night was over; time to face the day.

"I'm glad it doesn't stop with us," she murmured. She lifted her lips into a smile for him, reached for his hand. His fingers tangled with hers, seeking - she knew - the same comfort and touchstone she took from him as well.

But instead of leaving it at that, she brought his fingers to that space just under her ribs so that his palm stretched the length of her torso. She pressed his hand flat and he gave a little sound in his throat, like disbelief clicking over into wonder.

"We can do this," she told him confidently. She believed it. Whatever happened now, they were more than capable. "We have all we need."

* * *

Castle listened as she told her story, asked questions to clarify when it sounded like she was getting lost in the recounting. He took notes on a pad of paper at the coffee table while she sat propped up on the couch. He didn't watch her as she spoke; he just listened, taking in everything, hearing the things she didn't say and the pauses she made when it got particularly distressing.

He didn't offer anything - he didn't want to bias her retelling.

When she'd given him the bare outline of events, Castle read back through his notes and realized how spare she'd been with it. She'd always been like that, he knew, like earlier this month when she'd had to tell him about Deleware and Black. It was how she coped. But if they were going to protect her, he had to know everything.

"All right, one more time," he said quietly, lifting his head to study her. "I'm going to have to ask difficult questions - to get into it."

"I know," she said. "I've been debriefed before."

He sighed and tapped the pen against the pad of paper. "But not by me."

"Debriefs aren't personal, Castle. I know that."

"But they _are_," he scraped out. "They're personal. That's the problem."

"Just ask. I won't be offended."

"All right," he gave in. "We'll start at the beginning of your day."

"Before Dr Boyd called or after?" she teased.

The smile cracked across his face and he shook his head at her. "Not personal, huh?"

"Couldn't help myself," she smirked at him.

"Okay, let's say before the doctor called you."

"First day of the grand jury testimony. We were building the case in layers. Rachel and I met that morning-"

"Time?"

"One-fifteen," she said firmly. "I was late. _Someone_ wouldn't let me leave lunch on time. Boyd called me after that. And then I - let's just say I was really distracted."

He lifted his eyes to hers this time and she was grinning at him, her knees propped up under a pillow, her back on another one, the cut over her eyebrow vivid in the darkness. She was so damn tough. She blew him away.

"All right. Really distracted, but you knew the time?"

"Of course. I wanted to memorize every second for you. To tell you later."

He grinned back, pushed in on his knees to softly kiss her. She hummed and pressed her fingers to his jaw as if to guide him. He broke away reluctantly and sat back. "What then?"

"We went up and down the street ourselves and cut off every camera so that the members of the grand jury wouldn't be seen. We had to put Secret Service guys on every entrance to the building."

Castle made notes as she went through her day, hour by hour, listening carefully to the details she was dredging up from her memory. She hesitated when she mentioned stepping outside for a break.

"Malone met you," he said, prompting her.

"He was hurrying." Kate's voice faded out to nothing and he glanced up again. She was tough, but she was so alone on the couch, wrapped in blankets and cushioned by pillows. Castle shifted off the floor and onto the couch, tucked an arm under her knees.

"Hurting you?"

She shook her head, watching him position her legs over his thighs. "Mal had the files I'd asked him to bring; he'd put them in a secure case. I didn't - it seemed overkill. They were just print-outs. He'd highlighted some of the relevant sections where the alternate spellings of those night club names had bothered us, and that was all it was."

"The files he brought you were just testimony transcripts?" he murmured.

"Yeah." Her voice had a catch in it and he squeezed her ankle in support. She eased against the back of the couch and took a slow breath. "Saved my life, I think."

She was jumping ahead in the timeline, but he let her. "Saved your life."

"Delayed the inevitable. They wanted me to open it. Bracken - he thought there was some kind of evidence inside. I don't know why - or how he got that information - but he thought it was the one key piece of evidence."

This wasn't what he'd been looking for, but it had pushed something to the forefront of his memory.

"When we were in that hallway with Black," he said slowly, "he turned and said, _Deal's off_."

Kate shivered, wincing when it pulled against her ribs. "Deal's off. And _game's on_."

Castle turned his head and stared into space, hardly able to think it, let alone put words to it. But Beckett curled her knees around his thighs and came slowly towards him, laid her cheek to his shoulder.

"You think your father somehow arranged this." She dropped her hand to his and trailed her fingers around his knuckles. They were scabbed over from where he'd accidentally punched a steel beam in frustration. Accidentally.

"Deleware was his, as we know, and I didn't see that coming - how _deep_ undercover that asshole was the whole time. So who else inside the CIA does he have working for him? Leaking information about the grand jury in the guise of being on Bracken's payroll - a double agent."

"We don't know that."

"It makes sense."

"I thought you were supposed to be debriefing me?"

"I'd like to, but I think it'd just make your ribs worse. Not the kind of moaning I'm going for."

Kate groaned and knocked her forehead into his shoulder. "Stop making me laugh. That is just mean; you're being mean. Putting dirty thoughts in my head _and_ making me laugh."

"Sorry, comes out before I can stop it," he murmured. He turned and dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

She went silent, fingers circling around his knuckles again. "What happened here?"

"I punched something."

"Oh, really?"

"Might have been slightly upset."

"Only slightly."

"I was wrong on my first guess."

"Wrong about - oh. Where I was."

"Yes."

"This is starting to hurt."

"No, it doesn't hurt that much. I mean - it aches, yeah, but I've been icing it off and on."

She grunted, pinched the webbing between his thumb and finger. "I mean _me_. My ribs-"

He gripped her arms and straightened her up, eased her back down to the pillows. "Sorry. I should've realized."

"It hurts to breathe."

"I'd do it for you, but I don't think that works so hot."

She growled and kicked her foot at him; he gave her a little grin and dipped his head to kiss her cheek.

"Promise I'll stop trying to make you laugh. Too bad though. I love when you laugh."

Her hand caught his and gripped his knuckles, tight enough to make them throb in awareness again. "Don't stop trying."

"You tired?" he murmured. He shifted back down the floor to keep from pressing against her sore ribs, but he left his hand in hers, let her play her fingers around his knuckles.

"No. Even if I was, I couldn't fall asleep like this."

"Then let's keep going."

She nodded, but her fingers tightened around his and she carefully brought his hand to her lips, brushed her kiss over the scabs. "Thank you."

"Thank _you_, Kate."

* * *

"Every detail. Has to be every single thing. The more detail you put into your testimony, then the more things they have to check for accuracy, to prove your innocence."

Kate knew it was true; she knew it. Still made it hard to put it all out there, word-vomit all over him. Especially about this part.

"Some things shouldn't be told," she muttered.

"I know. But we'll decide together what details we put out there, and which ones should be hidden. I've been dealing with secrets for a long time, Kate."

That hadn't been what she meant. National secrets were one thing, but explaining to Castle what it had felt like to take a boot in the stomach, the desperate, awful-

She didn't want to share that. Burden him with it? No point in both of them knowing that horror.

"Come on, Kate. We're nearly done."

She shifted slowly on the couch easing onto her hip even though it was the bruised one. There was really no good position, ribs in agony on one side, hip aching on the other. "I woke up in the trunk of a car. There'd been two SUVs up on the sidewalk, so I guessed it was the NYPD cruiser."

Castle was sitting on the floor, writing down the details, but he kept one hand on her thigh, as if to just reassure them both of her presence. "How long do you think you were awake in the trunk?"

"Thirty minutes, maybe? Could have been shorter. You found me in New Jersey, so I'm guessing that's pretty accurate. Out cold for however long because of this-" She lifted her hand and touched the butterfly bandage over her eyebrow.

Castle nodded. "You're probably pretty accurate. Thirty minutes and then what?"

"We went over some rough road - felt like a service road, but lots of sticks, gravel - something not well-traveled. And then the car went off-road. I could tell because the sound of leaves and grass - it's different."

"The car went off-road for how long?"

"Not long. Just thirty seconds. Right there. It stopped, I heard the door open, and then there was a long time."

He must be able to see it on her face, because his hand tightened at her thigh. She studied her feet in the ridiculous wool socks he'd bought her for Christmas, pink and grey, so warm that her toes were sweating.

"I thought about what to do," she told him then. She turned her head and caught his profile, the sharp edge of his jaw. "I came up with a plan. Legs duct taped, arms taped behind me. I'd started working on the tape, to peel it off, and I was going to kick out at him when he opened the trunk. But instead, there were five guys with guns when it lifted."

He squeezed her thigh a little harder, still writing. She wondered why he wasn't doing it on his laptop - it was secure - but maybe it was because this way he could still touch her.

"They dragged me out and dropped me on the ground. There were trees - it was wooded - and there were rocks on the ground. I was half on my side, knees drawn up a little. I wanted to keep curled up as much as possible."

Castle cleared his throat and his head turned towards her, something bleak in his eyes. "You can't say that. When they ask. No mention of it."

She nodded. "I know. Just - you. You have to know I tried-"

Castle came up on his knees, leaning in close to her. "I know. I know, Kate. Don't." He dropped a soft kiss to her eyebrow, just below the bandage, and she felt his hand skate up to her hip, his thumb rubbing softly against her stomach. "I know you. I know how fierce you are."

Shit, why did it matter so much? Maybe because she'd spent the last few weeks trying to convince him that when she went after Black, she really _wasn't_ suicidal - she just wanted the regimen so Castle would live.

At least he knew.

His kiss against her knuckles brought her back the now; she shifted forward and sank into his embrace, a shallow breath as she felt his arms around her. It hurt, but it hurt more not to.

"I need to get off the couch," she murmured. "Can't lie down for long."

"Want to walk around?"

"Yeah, help me up?"

Castle didn't even answer; he just hauled her upright, so strong, and got her on her feet. She felt her spine cracking in all the right places, but she couldn't take in a deep breath to stretch. Sasha came in from the kitchen and nosed into the back of her hand, a lick along her fingers like the wolf was just checking in. Kate leaned to one side, her ribs twinging, stroked the dog's head.

"You sleeping in the kitchen?" she murmured. "Why were you in there, puppy? Your room's upstairs."

"She's just practicing for sharing," Castle said. He came in close and scratched between Sasha's ears. "Aren't you, Sasha? Not just your room any more. You'll have to share with the little wolf."

Kate's heart fluttered; she lifted her eyes to Castle to see if it had hit him the same way. "A little wolf?"

"It just keeps coming out of my mouth," he said. "Wow."

She shook her head, tried to dispel the sense of surreality that had dropped over them. Her ribs were bruised, her hips ached, her whole body was messed up, and she'd nearly been killed by a US Senator.

And they were pregnant.

It just - didn't quite mesh.

"Keep going?" he rasped. "We have a lot of ground to cover."

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "Can we walk? Helps to keep me from stiffening up."

* * *

They shaped a cover story while they walked, tossing ideas back and forth, building it together. She was animated at first but began to falter by the time they'd ironed out the biggest wrinkles to their plan.

No CIA would be mentioned - she was insistent that he not blow his Rick Rodgers alias, his most-true name, and he was insistent she not be associated with the CIA to the press.

They talked until the sun came up, filling in the details, getting it right, quizzing each other.

Standing in the hallway just outside the extra bedroom, Kate suddenly leaned hard into him. Castle tried to keep from hurting her, but he knew his grip around her waist had to be painful as he held her up.

"Kate?"

"I'm so tired," she mumbled.

"Yeah, I know, love." He glanced once more to the room they couldn't even talk about without too much _hope_ ruining them, and he reached out to turn off the light. In the dim of the pale morning, it seemed much more feasible. "Let's go back downstairs. We'll sleep for a few hours and then the boys will be here."

She nodded against him and he slowly turned them around, got them started for the stairs once more. It was a process, and by the time they'd gotten to the living room, he could feel her beginning to tremble. The steps had taken it out of her; she was leaning hard against him, hunched over as if to protect her ribs.

"I should've said something sooner," she muttered. "I didn't realize."

He'd pick her up and carry her if he thought it would help. "Piggy-back ride?" he asked.

She snorted and at least there was that, some amusement still. But they were creeping across the living room, through the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of water from the counter and shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans, gripping her again by the elbows to help take some of her weight.

Kate stopped at the door to the basement and her hesitation made him a little desperate.

"I'm carrying you," he said. "My fault we're down here anyway."

"You gotta get that upstairs one finished," she sighed.

Now with the baby, wow. Yeah. He'd have to - there were so many things to do.

Castle opened the basement door and the warm air from below came up towards them. She leaned back into his chest and then finally turned to him.

"Not the scoop carry, but-"

"Yeah, I can do that," he agreed quickly. "Put your arms around my neck."

"Might need your help with that one," Kate said, tilting her head to look at him.

Castle lifted her arms to his neck, trying to go slowly, trying not to make it worse, but the pain seemed constant across her face. She'd just taken a few tylenol, but a couple pain reliever were nothing against the continued strain of her bruised ribs.

"Ready?" he murmured.

"No," she growled, but there was a laugh in it.

He got his arms under her legs and lifted her up; she gasped and he felt it vibrate through her body. "I'll make it fast, sweetheart."

She gripped him with her arms, and he started down the stairs, wishing now more than ever that he'd gotten the second room finished behind that closet. She grunted when he hit the first step, and he tried to take a lighter tread down the stairs, moving as quickly as he dared.

At the bottom, her nails were digging into his neck, her breath fast down his back.

"Lie down with me," she said. "Prop me up."

"Of course," he murmured, kissing her temple as he maneuvered them inside the panic room. He called out for Sasha and the dog came bounding down the steps, slinked inside the room with them. Kate had eased slightly, her body less rigid now that they were still, and Castle shut the door behind him.

It swung closed and sealed, the lights went on and the security panel checked in: green across the board. The satisfaction spilled inside him, made his heartbeat steady, and even Kate relaxed.

Safe. Totally safe. Nothing could get to them.

"I'm so tired," she mumbled against his skin. Castle got a knee down on the mattress, came carefully to lie down, holding Kate against his side. Sasha curled up at her back and actually helped keep Kate propped up, and he reached down to draw the covers over them.

Kate pressed her fingers to his throat. "Are you going to sleep?"

"Do my best," he promised.

But he knew he'd be awake for a long time, running the story over and over again in his mind, looking for cracks.

The story would save her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Close Encounters 16**

* * *

"McCord will be here in an hour," Castle told them, ending the phone call with Rachel. He faced the guys in his living room and stared them down, made absolutely sure they understood how serious this was. "From now on, we don't mention the pregnancy. Not a word, a joke, a nod, nothing. Black is still out there and I don't know who we can trust."

Each one of them - Esposito, Ryan, Mitchell - kept Castle's gaze and nodded tersely; they all understood what was at stake.

"I'm gonna go get Kate. She'll be pissed I let her sleep this long."

"You have a story worked out for us?" Esposito said tightly.

"Yeah, we do. We'll let you all in on it before McCord gets here. But it's imperative that she thinks she's part of the cover. She doesn't know about the baby, and she can't."

"We got it, man," Ryan said. He was sitting on their couch, elbows on his knees, and he looked as afraid as Castle felt when the idea of Black finding out...

Ryan would have his own baby at home soon. So very soon. He understood.

"I'll be right back," Castle said tightly.

He moved for the kitchen and the basement door, and he heard Esposito snickering. He didn't care. They'd both gotten about four hours of sleep down in the panic room, deep and dreamless, and they'd needed it.

When he got down there, Kate was pulling clean clothes from the laundry basket on top of the dryer. "Oh, good. You can help me."

She handed him her clothes and gave him a smirk that made him feel better; she looked better too. "The boys are upstairs."

"I could hear you guys talking," she nodded. "Help me strip."

Castle chuckled and laid her jeans and shirt on the dryer once more, reached for the hem of the t-shirt she'd worn to bed. "So demanding."

"You love it."

He grinned and kissed her between the eyes, slowly worked the top over her head. Her hair was curly from drying last night and it fell softly down her back in waves. "How's it feel?"

"I'm glad we walked around last night," she said, evading the question.

"You think better now?"

"It's... it hurts," she admitted, shoulders hunched.

Castle stroked his fingers down her spine, circled her shoulder blades. "You want a sports bra?"

"I don't know that I can... no." She tossed her head and leaned into him; he embraced her lightly, gave her that moment she needed. She spoke against his chest. "Actually, yeah. Sports bra. I think my running clothes got washed in this load too."

Castle let go of her to rummage through the basket, found the neon pink bra and held it up by a finger, dangling it in front of her eyes. "I get to help with this too?"

She snorted and gripped the side of his shirt, tugging just enough to pull him towards her. Of course, his blanace was better than that, but he let his body sway.

"I think that's a yes," he murmured with a grin.

"Yes," she huffed. "Fine. Help me put on my bra, Agent Castle."

His grin only got wider, glad she was playing along, happy to help. He widened the base of her sports bra and pulled it on over her head, being careful when he let the elastic band release against her skin. She stood up straighter, the only indication of the pain, and he slowly drew her arms through the holes, arranged it.

"I like this hot pink bra," he murmured, coming in close to run his fingers down her back. Goose bumps flared in his wake and he pretended that the band needed to be fixed, smoothing his fingers under it to touch her skin.

"Need my shirt, Castle," she murmured.

"Right now?" he sighed. "So soon?"

"Stop being seductive," she muttered. "I can't do anything about it. Not with the boys upstairs."

Like that was the only thing holding her back. Castle skimmed a kiss to her cheek and reached for the shirt, another one of his former black t-shirts. He didn't mind her stealing them from him; it was strangely sexy to follow her home and find her shedding work clothes - those drop-dead gorgeous outfits she pulled together effortlessly - and sliding her body into something of _his_.

It was a little more difficult this time, but he helped her the best he could, ignoring the way she held herself against it, bracing for the pain. She'd pulled out jeans for herself, but he thought that was maybe asking too much, so he found her running pants instead - spandex and easily pulled into place, no buttons or zippers. She'd thank him for it later.

When she was dressed, she was a little shaky but determined. "I need some breakfast," she said. "And we can talk to the boys while I eat."

"And tylenol," he reminded her.

Kate touched his arm, turned him for the stairs. "I took it when I woke up," she confessed. "You left a water bottle and the tylenol down there for me. Get going, Castle. I'm ready to do this."

"I should go behind you," he said, pausing at the bottom step.

She gave him a look but she didn't protest; she went slowly ahead of him and he followed her, his hands hovering, ready to catch her if she fell.

* * *

"Here's what we've come up with so far," Kate started. Her back ached in strange places from the awkward position she'd fallen asleep in, but she didn't dare move. Castle was watching her like a hawk. "The CIA can't be mentioned in any way because we had no legal jurisdiction. So this becomes a Task Force between the NYPD and Secret Service, with liaise through the AG's office. Officially."

"Wait. NYPD?" Espo said. "How you figure?"

Kate leaned forward, adjusting only slightly, but even just sitting up straight echoed all through her body. "The idea is that the AG's office approached me - the NYPD detective - to help with an investigation into a crooked politician. This was after Coonan was killed. The connections there are well-established through the evidence we've collected, and we can say that McCord had a hunch, since she had already been looking into things on her end."

"How much back-tracking are we gonna have to do to make that fly?" Espo snorted. "That's years worth."

"I did have a hunch," Rachel injected. "Not the right hunch, but close enough. My co-workers knew I was on to something big, even back then. I kept my mouth shut and my head down, so that's not going to seem all that strange that they didn't know."

"Okay," Ryan said. "All right. I can see that. What about us?"

"I recruited you," Kate said easily. "We're all still NYPD. When IAB looks into this, it'll look like what it looked like - I was first on the Task Force, and I brought you guys along with me when it started to be more than I could handle alone."

"What exactly have we been doing undercover?" Esposito said. "I mean, CIA training courses aren't gonna cut it."

"We'll have to come up with that," Castle said smoothly. "Some of that time, yes, can't be accounted for. But say you three were working out of the Secret Service, running down leads, computer searches - then there'd be some protocol for training, meetings, that kind of thing."

"On the Secret Service." Esposito didn't look like he thought it would work, but Ryan was into it.

He was nodding his head and Beckett could see him thinking. He shuffled his feet and sat forward in his chair. "Okay, okay, here's what I see for us. We had to do some intensive training sessions to get up to speed, right? So those weeks I was at the CIA computer camp, that was just a Secret Service crash course."

Espo shot him a narrow-eyed look, but Kate took it up.

"Exactly. The work Castle did a few years ago to bust up a lot Bracken's organized crime ring is stuff the Task Force can claim. It was in its infancy, but it was still there."

At her word choice, Ryan's eyes flickered away from hers, Castle shifted beside her, took up the narrative. "So you three are NYPD, understand?"

"And what about you?" Ryan said, a little too quickly.

"I'm nothing."

"You're not nothing," Kate said hotly, turning to look at him. He lifted an eyebrow and her cheeks flushed. "Well, not to me. He's Richard Rodgers. He's married, owns a dog, just reconnected with his mother."

"You're going with your cover alias?" Esposito said. "But that means you're a sports agent and you've got _no_ sports knowledge."

"No, no," Kate said quickly. "He's an accountant for a sports agent. And that's always the big joke - he knows nothing about sports. My father has had to fill him in on the rules of football, etc. That kind of thing."

"So he's an orphan - nothing at all about Black?"

"Who's Black?" McCord said. "Is this someone else I need to know about?"

"Black is-" Kate paused and shot Castle a pleading look. He sighed, rubbed his hand down his face.

"Black is my father. He travels a lot, never really had time for me. He doesn't approve of Kate and so we're estranged. That's the story - and it's the truth."

Kate let out a long breath that made her ribs stiffen; she braced her arm across her middle and Esposito shot her a warning look, some kind of panic on his face she couldn't understand. Oh. Because her arm was across her stomach? Calm down, Espo.

McCord gave her a sympathetic look. "I know - it's got to hurt. I got shot in the vest once and that hurt for weeks. I can't imagine. They didn't give you any pain killers? Like the good stuff?"

Kate opened her mouth but Castle beat her to it. "They did, but she won't take them. You know Beckett."

She closed her mouth, flushing because it was usually so damn true. "They make me too tired," she muttered. She had to shift again, taking a shallow breath, and McCord clucked her tongue.

"You should take those - the first 48 hours at least."

"After we get through this, maybe," Kate murmured. "Now for the details of the Task Force. Rachel, we're going to need you to run point on this - it will be a lot of... creative storytelling."

McCord nodded. "I can do that. I think this is important - not just because Bracken was a bastard who had it coming, but because you're a good agent. The best I've seen in a long time. You don't deserve this."

_You don't deserve this._

Wait. What didn't she deserve? Was there something else going on outside of keeping a lid on the CIA's involvement?

Kate turned her gaze to Castle and he was being suspiciously still, not looking at her.

"What's going on?" she snapped. "Castle. What's happened?"

He met her eyes, but the truth was already there. She should have seen this coming. A signed confession from a Westies enforcer in ICU wasn't enough. Not when she'd shot a US Senator.

"They're trying to bury me for this," she whispered. "Bracken's people..."

Or Black.

That was what Castle had meant yesterday. Black was trying to bury her.

"Speaking of - someone leaked photos this morning," McCord said crisply. "Security camera footage of a kitchen inside the Palace Terrace hotel. Shows you pointing a gun at Bracken and then pistol whipping him."

Oh, no.

"We can't prove they've been altered, but we'll keeping working on it," McCord said, patting Kate's hand.

Beckett curled her fingers into a fist. "You should stop. They're not fakes."

"What?"

"I did that. I threatened him in order to broker a deal, and then I hit him to make a point. And it worked."

Castle sighed, his face lined as he looked at her. "Until yesterday."

* * *

Esposito hung back from the dining room table where Castle and Beckett had laid out all the timeline issues. McCord was taking charge, using the black marker on the white board propped up in the corner to jot down details so everyone would know the official story.

"This isn't gonna do it," Espo told him quietly.

Castle shifted to lean back against the wall, suddenly so tired. "It's all we got, Javi."

"It's not enough to protect her," Espo growled. "How do you plan on that? Huh? Because what I see is a bunch of suspicious shit. And we've got to fool IAB as well as the FBI?"

"FBI?" Castle scraped out.

"Yeah, Congress, man. FBI and Secret Services. Shit."

_Shit_. That just about covered it, didn't it? "Most of this isn't even a lie, Espo. It's just a little bit broader brush to paint the truth."

"IAB, the FBI, Congressional hearings, and a reporter."

"Well, part of being a CIA agent is lying to protect the people you serve with. If we don't do this, you're all exposed. But of course, if we _do_ do this, you're all exposed as well. It's a no-win situation."

"You know I'm ready to fucking lay it down for her, man, but Ryan's got a family."

"I know. I've kept Ryan out of this as much as possible. He's a new Secret Service hire - paperwork's all there. It's harder to make that work for you, because your sniper training is public record, but we've got it worked out so that you and Beckett were partners on this, working out of the NYPD Undercover Unit."

Espo gritted his teeth, stayed silent, but Castle already knew. They were on thin ice.

"The two of you instead of her and me, that's the only difference, Esposito. You can do it. I trust you."

"I _know_ I can do it," Espo growled.

But. Castle could hear the _but_ coming.

Esposito turned so that Beckett couldn't see him. "We should have taken him out. Long time ago. Soon as we knew the name; we should have dealt with it."

_You _should have, Esposito seemed to be saying.

"No," Castle said grimly. "I should have killed Black. _He_ should be dead by now. He's behind this."

Esposito gave him a sharp, assessing look. "Next time. You don't hesitate."

Castle nodded.

"And, Castle, if you do-" Esposito shifted closer, menacing. "If you do, you call me. I won't."

* * *

The guys and McCord were all in the kitchen poring over details when Beckett made the mistake of watching the news coverage.

She sank to her knees in front of the television, put her hands over her mouth as she stared at the screen. Her ribs pounded with her heartbeat so that she couldn't move, could only watch in horror.

"Kate," Castle barked at her. He strode into the living room and jabbed his thumb into the tv's power button. It popped and went dark and she sank over her hands, sucking in her breath.

"Oh, God," she moaned.

"No, stop. Kate. I am _not_ letting them take you for this."

"I shot him. I shot him and what-"

"No," Castle growled, hauling her to her feet. "I will not let it go down like this."

Beckett sucked in a breath that wouldn't come, tried to rationalize what she'd seen, what they were saying about her. "They're going to arrest me, Castle." She closed her eyes.

"No."

"Yes," she said calmly, finally looking at him. "And we can't - there's very little to do before that. We get our ducks in a row, but I have to be arrested."

"No. Kate." He growled into her hair and gripped her fiercely, his arm too tight and making her breath catch. But he still didn't let go. "Kate, let me take you somewhere. We'll just - we'll go back to Cyprus. We'll live there in that little villa and we'll eat at that amazing place just down the street and sip rose cordial-"

"Castle," she sighed.

He went still but his heart still beat like thunder under her ear. She shifted away from him. "I shot a US Senator. And yes, he came after me first, but I'll be taken into custody."

"I'm not _turning you over_ without a fucking arrest warrant," he cursed.

"We've done all we can," she said quietly. "The FBI will interview everyone and it - it might take a long time to get it sorted. It might take a year for a thorough investigation to be completed."

"It can't," he said bleakly. His hand circled around her hip and his thumb brushed her belly button. "Oh, God, Kate. It can't."

A year? What was she thinking? They didn't have a year. They had - at best - three or four months before she started to show, and besides that, she was supposed to be seeing a doctor soon. Three weeks was barely anything, barely a baby at all, and how was she supposed to keep hold of it if she was in prison?

"No," he whispered. "It can't. It won't."

"We'll figure it out."

"I'll fly your Dad out of the country too," he husked. "Anyone you want, Kate. We'll start over somewhere else. New names. New identities. We can do it."

"That's sweet," she whispered. "But I don't want our child to grow up never knowing the truth of us."

Castle dipped his mouth to her neck, a kiss she didn't understand, and then she heard his laughter at her skin. "Oh, love, that's... we're spies. How will he ever know the truth?"

Her heart broke. But she refused to believe their life would be a lie even from their child. "No, he'll know. He'll know because we'll be right here. I refuse to lie to him. He deserves to know how much - how much we wanted him, what we worked through and against to get him here. Why it's important."

"Okay," he said quickly. "Okay, okay, Kate. All right."

"When they come to arrest me-"

"No."

"When they do-"

"Kate."

"I want you to stay here," she said tightly.

"What? No. I'm coming with-"

"You're supposed to be my accountant husband," she murmured. "Stay here and keep me out of jail. Get a lawyer."

"No," he said tightly. "You're not going to be arrested. You're not."

But she would. And soon.

* * *

He'd gone back to the timeline with renewed fervor, denial in every taut line of his body. He was _not _going to let her go.

"At some point, we'll have to set up residence in the cover apartment," Beckett told him.

Castle shook his head; he didn't want to hear it.

"Castle," she sighed. She nudged him away from the others, drew him into the kitchen. "Rick, I know you don't want to think about this. But the Rodgers live in an apartment with their dog in Greenwich Village - that will be where the reporters camp out looking for us, where the police will come."

"You're not going-"

"Castle," she growled. "Do you think I _want_ to go? I just want to keep-" She pressed her hand to her ribs and turned her head.

He immediately felt guilty, tried to press closer to her, somehow protect her from that pain. "Okay," he murmured, slowly taking her shoulders, taking her weight. "Okay, the apartment. Right. We have to live our covers."

"We should go there sometime today so that none of this comes back to our home here." She straightened up again, wouldn't lean on him. "I don't want a reporter finding us here. This is - sacred space for us, Rick. This is where we'll keep our child safe. I don't want anyone finding our real home."

He nodded, flooded by the weight of responsibility - not just for Kate, but for their baby too. For their future. He was paranoid in the here and now because he didn't want to have it come back to them tomorrow, but being careful here and now so that twelve years from now it didn't ruin them - it just hadn't ever occurred to him.

"Please," she murmured to him, that one word that always got him.

"I know," he said finally, squeezing his eyes closed. "We'll go when we're done here. We'll - God, Kate, I don't want to go."

She wrapped an arm around his neck even though it had to hurt her, and she pressed her cheek against his. "Baby, I know. I know. But this is what we have to do. Stick to the cover story."

He swallowed against it; he didn't want it to be like this. But she trusted the system; she wanted justice and the law to clear her name because, in the end, her whole being was built on those truths. Her mother's life had been built on those truths.

Castle had never had truths to build on. He had to have faith in _her_ faith, or else he wasn't going to survive this.

He wasn't sure that was going to be enough.

"Let's all go into the living room, rehearse this," Kate said to him. Her kiss was soft at his ear, her lips brushing the shell and making a shiver go down his spine. "We've got it pretty good; we'll just go at it over and over until it's flawless. We're all spies - we're good at this."

Castle lifted his head and studied her; she was so strong, so purposeful. He believed in her, that was for sure. "Okay." He backed up and turned around to glance at their group still crowded around the dining room table. "Hey, guys. Let's adjourn to the living room and test it out. If any of you get a sense that it's flimsy or weak, then we work it out until it's solid. Got it?"

"Aye-aye, Captain," Esposito snarked, giving him a salute and moving for the living room. Castle felt Kate's hand in his shirt and he reached back to take her fingers, drawing her after him.

Their friends came with them, ready to work out the last of the kinks.

* * *

When the knock came on their door, Kate stiffened at his side. Castle stood and had a moment's gut-searing panic - _hide her_ - that was knocked away when Esposito just outright opened the door.

But it was Reynolds.

Busted up, black and blue Reynolds, who'd nearly died off the coast of North Africa because he'd listened to one too many of Black's lies.

"Ren," Castle choked out.

Reynolds gave a half-hearted chuckle and stepped over the threshold, carefully avoiding Esposito. "I heard on the news. I'm here to help."

Kate came up beside him, though Castle knew it must have cost her to move that quickly. "Michael. You're - how are you? Are you okay?"

"Am _I _okay? Agent Beckett, you shot a senator."

And with that pronouncement, the whole room fell into terrible silence.

Because she had - she had shot a senator. And that just didn't go away.

How fucking ironic that the one person in this whole room who'd only wanted justice for Senator Bracken was the one who'd be put on trial for his murder?

"It was self-defense," Beckett said into the silence.

And then the room cracked and broke, shaky chuckles and eye rolls and shrugging shoulders. Michael Reynolds came uneasily into the living room and up to Kate, holding out his hand. He still looked like he'd been in a war; his fingers were still in splints where the small bones had been broken.

"I want to help. You saved my life and you didn't have to do that. Whatever you need, I'll do it."

Kate took his hand gingerly and shook it, her smile as crooked and pained as his. "Welcome home, Michael."

* * *

They staggered their departures, avoiding the front sidewalk in favor of going out the back. Once, Sasha had escaped the backyard through a long-forgotten alleyway corridor, and after that, Castle had expanded upon that passage to give them a covert escape if they should ever need it.

They needed it now.

Mitchell left them first, going alone, to tie off some last-minute threads to his cover; he was the one who'd be risking the most in their plan, and Castle knew the man was getting his flight bag ready in case it went sideways.

Reynolds went with Ryan, the two of them heading back for the CIA Office to collect the material Mitchell would need when he went to his reporter. Esposito went ahead of them to the cover apartment, locking it down for their arrival, checking to be sure no reporters had gotten into the building.

McCord went back to the AG's local office, ready to call Secret Service and IAB, to run interference for them with the FBI's investigative unit that had formed at a special request of Congress. Her boss had already messaged her twice to get going on it; he wanted her in place to liaise as well, so it worked out for them.

Finally, only Castle and Kate remained, Sasha looking disgruntled at all the upheaval to their home.

"Time to go," he told the dog. "You'll probably hate the new place, but it's only for a little while." He clipped the leash onto her collar and she actually bristled at him, baring her teeth, showing her wolf side.

"I've never seen her do that," Kate said, coming into the hallway and dropping her messenger bag to the floor. They'd packed only a few items inside, sending most of their clothes ahead with Esposito, just in case anyone caught them sneaking in. It wouldn't do to have it look like Kate was trying to run.

"Me either," Castle sighed, nudging his fingers into Sasha's nose in warning. They'd been lucky she was so even-tempered, that she was laid-back and had attached herself to them as her pack. "At least not to us."

"I've seen her do it in the dog park," Kate admitted. "When she thinks I'm in danger."

"With people or other dogs?"

"People," Kate murmured, getting down carefully on her knees and opening her arms to the dog. Sasha came, rubbing against Kate and pushing her head into Kate's petting. "You're just worried, aren't you? A lot has gone on. We're all going to be okay, puppy. You'll be fine."

Castle leaned in over them and stroked Sasha between her ears, put at ease by the way her dog nature seemed to roll over her again, back to being an eager-to-please thing. "That's better. Good girl. When the baby comes, you'll have to let him into the pack too. Can you do that, Sasha?"

The dog nudged her muzzle into his hand and licked his fingers as if asking for forgiveness. Castle petted her quietly, soothed himself by the action, and then he finally met Kate's eyes.

She nodded and stood up, slowly. Castle took the bag from the floor and slung it over his shoulder, kept a firm grip on the leash. Kate didn't look all that steady beside him, brittle with her bruised ribs, but she turned in the foyer and headed resolutely for the back door.

"We should go," Kate called to him. "I don't want to linger."

They exited out the back, like thieves, and he didn't like it. But he remote locked the doors and set the alarm, and he had faith that no one and nothing could violate their home. They'd be away for who knew how long, unable to get back until this whole thing settled out, but when they did come back, when they were able...

Kate slipped her hand into his and squeezed, pressed her lips to his shoulder so that he paused and gave her a moment in the narrow passage between the buildings. "I don't want to leave it either," she murmured. "But we'll come back."

"We have to," he said. He reached out and brushed his fingers over her uninjured hip, pushed his knuckles just under her belly button, feeling her taut abs as she worked to keep herself from being jostled too much. "We need our home for him when he comes."

Kate's eyes caught his in the shadows between the buildings. She looked so strong standing there, so inviolate, like nothing could hurt her even as she nursed bruised ribs.

He cupped the side of her face and kissed her, pulling love from her mouth, needing that reminder of home. "Until then," he murmured, brushing his hand down her sternum. "He's safe here; I won't let anything happen to you, Kate."

* * *

so ends** Close Encounters 16: Skyfall**

Stay Tuned for **Close Encounters 17: On the Secret Service**


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